CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Hodgson, D.A.
Date : 1987
Title : Episodic retreat of the late Wisconsinan Laurentide Ice Sheet over northeast Victoria Island (Storkerson Peninsula and Stefansson Island)
Publication : Abstracts of the 16th Arctic Workshop : research on the roof of the world, Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E9, April 30 - May 2, 1987. - Edmonton, Alta
Issue :
Page(s) : 60.
Abstract
From the tangle of glacial landforms on southern and eastern Victoria Island, shown on the Glacial Map of Canada, a few loose ends leading out to the northeast have been unravelled. These record radically different ice flow regimes developed successively in the extreme northwest sector of the Laurentide Ice Sheet between 11.5 ka and 9.5 ka. I. Disintegration of thick ice at the end of the M'Clintock Ice Divide left a zone of diverse flow imprinted in thick till. The sea had invaded valleys in this zone by 10.4 ka. II. A band of streamlined till and scoured bedrock resulted from a surge of grounded ice over several hundred kilometres, truncating zone I. This flow may have generated the ca. 10 ka Viscount Melville Sound Ice Shelf. III. Smearing of older drumlins and light inscription of striations mark a readvance dated ca. 9.5 ka. This ice flowed from M'Clintock Channel, where it was possibly partially buoyant (i.e. another ice shelf?). Clearly,retreat in this sector of the Laurentide Ice Sheet was episodic. Whether this was controlled by climate (summers were as warm as at present) or by instability of the ice sheet adjacent to interisland channels is open to speculation.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology