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Late Pleistocene Cosmogenic 36Cl Glacial Chronology of the Southwestern Ahklun Mountains, Alaska

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jason P. Briner ,
Terry W. Swanson  and
Marc Caffee
Jason P. Briner
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences and INSTAAR, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, E-mail: jason.briner@colorado.edu
Terry W. Swanson
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences and Quaternary Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 98195
Marc Caffee
Affiliation:
Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, 94550
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Abstract

Thirty-two cosmogenic 36Cl surface exposure ages constrain the timing of two late Pleistocene glacial advances in the western Ahklun Mountains, southwestern Alaska. Boulders were sampled from one early Wisconsin (sensu lato) and six late Wisconsin moraines deposited by ice-cap outlet glaciers and local alpine glaciers. Four moraine boulders deposited during an extensive early Wisconsin ice-cap outlet glacier advance have a mean surface exposure age of 60,300±3200 yr. A moraine deposited by an ice-cap outlet glacier during the restricted late Wisconsin advance has a mean surface exposure age of 19,600±1400 yr. Five moraines deposited by late Wisconsin alpine glaciers have mean ages that range between 30,000 and 17,000 yr. The 36Cl ages are consistent with limiting 14C and thermoluminescence ages from related deposits and indicate that Ahklun Mountains glaciers reached their most extensive position of the last glaciation early during the late Pleistocene, in contrast to the deep-sea isotopic record of global ice volume.1

Keywords

glacial chronologyAlaska36Clcosmogenic analysis
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , September 2001 , pp. 148 - 154
Copyright
University of Washington

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