CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Evans, D.J.A.
Date : 1988
Title : Glacial geomorphology and late Quaternary history of Phillips Inlet and the Wootton Peninsula, northwest Ellesmere Island, Canada
Publication : Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Alberta, Edmonton
Issue :
Page(s) : 314 p
Abstract
Phillips Inlet and the Wootton Peninsula (2500 km2) are located on the northwest coast of Ellesmere Island. A 1:125,000 surficial geology and geomorphology map is compiled for the field area. Extensive surveying and dating (26 C14 dates) of raised marine sediments and shorelines provide a chronologic framework for the pattern of ice retreat and information on former ice configuration. Stratigraphic logs of ancient sediments and observations on contemporary glaciers are used to construct subclassifications of a glaciated valley landsystem. A subtill peat dating 39ka BP provides a maximum age on the onset of the last glaciation. During the last glaciation glaciers advanced <10 km from present margins. Moraines demarcate glacier margins at the fiord heads where piedmont lobes coalesced and floated in the sea. Morainal banks were deposited at the grounding lines of these glaciers and, where debris-charged basal ice occurred, subaqueous fans were deposited upon deglaciation. A palaeo-ELA of ca. 300 m asl is derived for the centre of the field area. Shells dating 20.2 ka BP (<2km from present ice margin) and 14.9 ka BP (from a morainal bank) document full glacial marine fauna. The restricted nature of the grounding lines suggests that extensive permanent landfast sea-ice and glacier and sea-ice ice shelves existed offshore. An equidistant shoreline diagram is constructed using the 8.5 ka BP shoreline as a guide. Tilts from 0.73 m/km to 0.85 m/km are calculated for this shoreline. Using shoreline tilts from elsewhere on northern Ellesmere Island the 10.1 ka BP marine limit descends from 112-117m asl at the fiord heads to 63-66 m asl at the north coast. Deglaciation started with a catastrophic calving phase throughout the field area between 10.1 ka and 7.8 ka BP. This chronology is similar to that from Clements Markham Inlet on the northeast coast and attests to the early Holocene warming trend recorded in high Arctic ice cores.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology