CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Barendregt, R.W.; Roed, M.; Smith, S.; Sanborn, P.; Greenough, J.; Layer, P.W.;Huscroft, C.; Mathewes, R.; Benowitz, J.; and Tessler, D.
Date : 2011.
Title : An Early Pleistocene Till, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada.
Publication : American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting 2011. December 5-9, 2011. San Francisco, California. USA.
Issue : GP51A-1151.
Page(s) :
Abstract
During construction of a road cut related to the Westside Road Interchange Project in West Kelowna, British Columbia, a till was encountered below one of the Lambly Creek valley basalts. The basalts are composed of a number of flows, ranging in age from 0.97 +- 0.05 Ma to 1.62 +-0.25 Ma based on new and available 40Ar/39Ar dating of basalt ground mass. Paleomagnetic data from all major units at the study site fall within one of the normal subchrons of the late Matuyama Reversed Chron and are in general agreement with the radiometric dates. Chemical signatures of the basalt are nearly identical to similar flows belonging to the Chilcotin Group of plateau lavas. This newly identified Chilcotin flow, combined with coeval flows at other locations imply that Chilcotin volcanism was more active during the Quaternary than previously thought. The underlying till is up to four metres thick and is mantled by a minimal Ah horizon in a paleosol. The till overlies laminated and cross bedded fluvial silty sand up to five metres thick that displays injection features and minor faulting. A layer of stratified gravel underlain by gray banded clay of unknown thickness underlies the sand. The till represents the earliest evidence of glaciation in the Okanagan Valley. Till fabric analysis indicates a southeasterly flow of this glacier. The present study site has yielded radiometric ages and polarities similar to those described by Mathews and Rouse for the Dog Creek locality, 320 km to the northwest in south-central British Columbia, where basalts occur below and above glacial deposits. The newly identified glacial till, here referred to as the Westbank First Nations till, is discussed in relation to other Early Pleistocene glaciations in the Cordillera and to the global paleoclimate record.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology