CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Hanson, M.A.
Date : 2003.
Title : Late Quaternary glaciation, relative sea level history and recent coastal submergence of northeast Melville Island, Nunavut.
Publication : Unpublished MSc thesis. University of Alberta. Edmonton, Alberta.
Issue :
Page(s) :
Abstract
Melville Island is pivotal to the lateQuaternary history of Arctic Canada, occupying the junction of three former ice masses: the NW Laurentide Ice Sheet, the SW Innuitian Ice Sheet, and local, island-based ice caps. The distribution of glacial and deglacial landforms mapped across NE Melville Island indicates that the area was occupied solely by local ice caps that coalesced during the last glaciation and advanced seaward of modern coastlines. Thirty-eight samples (predominantly molluscs) were collected from raised marine deposits and radiocarbon-dated. Glaciers retreated radially into the island's interior between 10.5 and 10.0 ka BP, when marine limit stood at 42 to 65 m asl. Three relative sea level curves display half-lives ranging from 1.5 to 2.1 ka. Together with postglacial isobases drawn on the 8.5 ka BP shoreline, these curves show progressively greater emergence to the ESE across the study area. This is attributed to a transition zone between the glacioisostatic unloading of the Laurentide and Innuitian ice sheets. Late Holocene submergence is a significant and ongoing characteristic of the western part of the study area. It is considered to record the ESE migration of a crustal forebulge across the western archipelago that has now reached E. Melville Island.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology