Episodic ice streams and ice shelves during retreat of the northwesternmost sector of the late Wisconsinan Laurentide Ice Sheet over the central Canadian Arctic Archipelago |
| |
| Authors: | DOUGLAS A HODGSON |
| |
| Institution: | Terrain Sciences Division, Geological Survey of Canada, 601 Booth Street, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A OE8, Canada;15th January, 1993 |
| |
| Abstract: | A complex of glacial landforms on northeastern Victoria Island records diverse flows within the waning late Wisconsinan Laurentide Ice Sheet over an area now divided by marine straits. Resolution of this ice flow pattern shows that dominant streamlined landforms were built by three radically different ice flows between 11,000 and 9000 BP. Subsequent to the glacial maximum, the marine-based ice front retreated at least 300 km to reach northeast Victoria Island by 10,400 BP. Disequilibration at the rapidly retreating margin induced minor surges on western Storkerson Peninsula (Flow 1). Next, a readvance into Hadley Bay transported 10,300 BP shells, while a major ice stream over eastern Storkerson Peninsula (Flow 2) remoulded till into a drumlin field several hundred kilometres long and at least 80 km wide until flow ceased prior to 9600 BP. The ice stream surged into Parry Channel, covering 20,000 km2 with the Viscount Melville Sound Ice Shelf. Finally, Flow 2 drumlins on the northwest shore of M'Clintock Channel were cross-cut c . 9300 BP by advance of the grounded margin of a buoyant glacier (Flow 3), possibly an analogue of Flow 2 displaced farther south. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
|
|
