Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-pkds5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-20T07:31:43.935Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Last glacial maximum climate inferences from cosmogenic dating and glacier modeling of the western Uinta ice field, Uinta Mountains, Utah

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Kurt A. Refsnider ,
Benjamin J.C. Laabs ,
Mitchell A. Plummer ,
David M. Mickelson ,
Bradley S. Singer  and
Marc W. Caffee
Kurt A. Refsnider*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Wisconsin, 1215 W Dayton St., Madison, WI 53706, USA
Benjamin J.C. Laabs
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, SUNY Geneseo, 1 College Circle, Geneseo, NY 14454, USA
Mitchell A. Plummer
Affiliation:
Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID 83415-2107, USA
David M. Mickelson
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Wisconsin, 1215 W Dayton St., Madison, WI 53706, USA
Bradley S. Singer
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Wisconsin, 1215 W Dayton St., Madison, WI 53706, USA
Marc W. Caffee
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Purdue University, 1296 Physics Building, W. Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Current address: Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, 1560 30th St. 450 UCB, Boulder, CO 80303, USA.E-mail address: kurt.refsnider@colorado.edu (K.A. Refsnider).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

During the last glacial maximum (LGM), the western Uinta Mountains of northeastern Utah were occupied by the Western Uinta Ice Field. Cosmogenic10Be surface-exposure ages from the terminal moraine in the North Fork Provo Valley and paired26Al and10Be ages from striated bedrock at Bald Mountain Pass set limits on the timing of the local LGM. Moraine boulder ages suggest that ice reached its maximum extent by 17.4±0.5 ka (± 2σ).10Be and26Al measurements on striated bedrock from Bald Mountain Pass, situated near the former center of the ice field, yield a mean26Al/10Be ratio of 5.7±0.8 and a mean exposure age of 14.0±0.5 ka, which places a minimum-limiting age on when the ice field melted completely. We also applied a mass/energy-balance and ice-flow model to investigate the LGM climate of the western Uinta Mountains. Results suggest that temperatures were likely 5 to 7°C cooler than present and precipitation was 2 to 3.5 times greater than modern, and the western-most glaciers in the range generally received more precipitation when expanding to their maximum extent than glaciers farther east. This scenario is consistent with the hypothesis that precipitation in the western Uintas was enhanced by pluvial Lake Bonneville during the last glaciation.

Keywords

Uinta MountainsLast glacial maximumCosmogenic nuclideCRNGlacier modelingIce fieldLake BonnevilleGlacial geologyPaleoclimate

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 130 - 144
Copyright
Elsevier B.V.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Atwood, W.W., (1909). Glaciation of the Uinta and Wasatch Mountains. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 61, 96 pp.Google Scholar
Bartlein, P.J., Anderson, K.H., Anderson, P.M., Edwards, M.E., Mock, C.J., Thompson, R.S., Webb, R.S., Webb, T. III, Whitlock, C., (1998). Paleoclimate simulations for North America over the past 21,000 years: features of the simulated climate and comparisons with paleoenvironmental data. Quaternary Science Reviews 17, 549–585.Google Scholar
Benson, L., Thompson, R.S., (1987). The physical record of lakes in the Great Basin. Ruddiman, W.F., Wright Jr., H.E., North American and adjacent oceans during the last deglaciation. Geological Society of America. The Geology of North America, Boulder, CO, K-3 241–260.Google Scholar
Benson, L., Madole, R., Phillips, W., Landis, G., Thomas, T., Kubik, P., (2004). The probable importance of snow and sediment shielding on cosmogenic ages of north-central Colorado Pinedale and pre-Pinedale moraines. Quaternary Science Reviews 23, 193–206.Google Scholar
Benson, L., Madole, R., Landis, G., Gosse, J., (2005). New data for Late Pleistocene Pinedale alpine glaciation in southwestern Colorado. Quaternary Science Reviews 24, 49–60.Google Scholar
Bierman, P.R., Marsella, K.A., Patterson, C., Davis, P.T., Caffee, M., (1999). Mid-Pleistocene cosmogenic minimum-age limits for pre-Wisconsinan glacial surfaces in southwestern Minnesota and southern Baffin Island: a multiple nuclide approach. Geomorphology 27, 25–39.Google Scholar
Bierman, P.R., Caffee, M.W., Davis, P.T., Marsella, K., Pavich, M., Colgan, P., Mickelson, D., Larsen, J., (2002). Rates and timing of earth surface processes from in situ-produced cosmogenic Be-10. Grew, E.S., Beryllium — mineralogy, petrology, and geochemistry. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry vol. 50, 25–39.Google Scholar
Briner, J.P., Swanson, T.W., (1998). Using inherited cosmogenic Cl to constrain glacial erosion rates at the Cordilleran ice sheet. Geology 26, 3–6.Google Scholar
Bromwich, D.H., Torancinta, E.R., Wei, H., Oglesby, R.J., Fastook, J.L., Hughes, T.J., (2004). Polar MM5 simulations of the winter climate of the Laurentide Ice Sheet at the LGM. Journal of Climate 17, 3415–3433.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, E.T., Edmond, J.M., Raisbeck, G.N., Yiou, F., Kurz, M.D., (1992). Effective attenuation lengths of cosmic rays producing 10Be and 26Al in quartz: implications for surface exposure dating. Geophysical Research Letters 19, 369–372.Google Scholar
Brugger, K.A., (2006). Late Pleistocene climate inferred from the reconstruction of the Taylor River Glacier Complex, southern Sawatch Range, Colorado. Geomorphology 75, 318–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colgan, P.M., Bierman, P.R., Mickelson, D.M., Caffee, M., (1998). Variations in glacial erosion near the southern margin of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, south-central Wisconsin, USA: Implications for cosmogenic dating of glacial terrains. Geological Society of America Bulletin 114, 1581–1591.Google Scholar
Daly, C., Neilson, R.P., Phillips, D.L., (1994). A statistical topographic model for mapping climatological precipitation over mountainous terrain. Journal of Applied Meteorology 33, 140–158.Google Scholar
Diodato, N., (2005). The influence of topography co-variables on the spatial variability of precipitation over small regions of complex terrain. International Journal of Climatology 25, 351–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunne, J., Elmore, D., Muziker, P., (1999). Scaling factors for the rates of production of cosmogenic nuclides for geometric shading and attenuation at depth on sloped surfaces. Geomorphology 27, 3–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fastook, J., Chapman, J.E., (1989). A map-plane finite-element model: three modeling experiments. Journal of Glaciology 35, 48–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godsey, H.S., Currey, D.R., Chan, M.A., (2005). New evidence for an extended occupation of the Provo shoreline and implications for regional climate change, Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, Utah, USA. Quaternary Research 63, 212–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goovaerts, P., (2000). Geostatistical approaches to incorporating elevation into the spatial interpolation of rainfall. Journal of Hydrology 228, 113–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gosse, J.C., Phillips, F.M., (2001). Terrestrial in situ cosmogenic nuclides: theory and application. Quaternary Science Reviews 20, 1475–1560.Google Scholar
Gosse, J.C., Klein, J., Evenson, E.B., Lawn, B., Middleton, R., (1995). Beryllium-10 dating of the duration and retreat of the last Pinedale glacial sequence. Science 268, 1329–1333.Google Scholar
Hallet, B., Putkonen, J., (1994). Surface dating of dynamic landforms: young boulders on aging moraines. Science 265, 937–940.Google Scholar
Hostetler, S.W., Giorgi, F., Bates, G.T., Bartlein, P.J., (1994). Lake-atmosphere feedbacks associated with paleolakes Bonneville and Lahontan. Science 263, 665–668.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaplan, M.R., Ackert, R.P. Jr., Singer, B.S., Douglass, D.C., Kurz, M.D., (2004). Cosmogenic nuclide chronology of millennial-scale glacial advances during O-isotope Stage 2 in Patagonia. Geological Society of America Bulletin 116, 308–321.Google Scholar
Kaufman, D.S., (2003). Amino acid paleothermometry of Quaternary ostracodes from the Bonneville Basin, Utah. Quaternary Science Reviews 22, 899–914.Google Scholar
Krinner, G., Mangerud, J., Jakobsson, M., Crucifix, M., Ritz, C., Svendsen, J.I., (2004). Enhanced ice-sheet growth in Eurasia owing to adjacent ice-dammed lakes. Nature 427, 429–432.Google Scholar
Kubik, P.W., Ivy-Ochs, S., Masarik, J., Frank, M., Schlüchter, C., (1998). 10Be and 26Al production rates deduced from an instantaneous even within the dendro-calibration curve, the landslide of Köfels, Ötz Valley, Austria. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 161, 231–241.Google Scholar
Laabs, B.J.C., Carson, E.C., (2005). Glacial geology of the southern Uinta Mountains. Dehler, C.M., Pederson, J.L., Sprinkel, D.A., Kowallis, B.J., Uinta Mountain Geology. Publication 33. Utah Geological Association, Salt Lake City, UT 235–253.Google Scholar
Laabs, B.J.C., Plummer, M.A., Mickelson, D.M., (2006). Climate during the last glacial maximum in the Wasatch and southern Uinta Mountains inferred from glacier modeling. Geomorphology 37, 300–317.Google Scholar
Lal, D., (1991). Cosmic-ray labeling of erosion surfaces: in situ nuclide production rates and erosion models. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 104, 424–439.Google Scholar
Lemons, D.R., Milligan, M.R., Chan, M.A., (1996). Paleoclimatic implications of late Pleistocene sediment yield rates for the Bonneville Basin, northern Utah. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 123, 147–159.Google Scholar
Leonard, E.M., (1984). Late Pleistocene equilibrium-line altitudes and modern snow accumulation patterns, San Juan Mountains, Colorado, U.S.A. Arctic and Alpine Research 16, 65–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leonard, E.M., (1989). Climatic change in the Colorado Rocky Mountains: estimates based on modern climate at late Pleistocene equilibrium-lines. Arctic and Alpine Research 21, 245–255.Google Scholar
Licciardi, J.M., Kurz, M.D., Clark, P.U., Brook, E.J., (1999). Calibration of cosmogenic 3He production rates from Holocene lava flows in Oregon, USA, and effects of the Earth's magnetic field. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 172, 261–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Licciardi, J.M., Clark, P.U., Brook, E.J., Pierce, K.L., Kurz, M.D., Elmore, D., Sharma, P., (2001). Cosmogenic 3He and 10Be chronologies of the late Pinedale northern Yellowstone ice cap, Montana, USA. Geology 29, 1095–1098.Google Scholar
Licciardi, J.M., Clark, P.U., Brook, E.J., Elmore, D., Sharma, P., (2004). Variable responses of western U.S. glaciers during the last glaciation. Geology 32, 81–84.Google Scholar
Licciardi, J.M., Pierce, K.L., Kurz, M.D., Finkel, R.C., (2005). Refined chronologies of Yellowstone ice cap and Teton Range outlet glacier fluctuations during the late Pleistocene. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 37, 41.Google Scholar
Lipps, E.W., Marchetti, D.W., Gosse, J.C., (2005). Revised chronology of late Pleistocene glaciers, Wasatch Mountains, Utah. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 37, 41.Google Scholar
Ludwig, K.R., (2003). User's manual for Isoplot 3.00. Berkeley Geochronology Center Special Publications 4.Google Scholar
McCoy, W.D., Williams, L.D., (1985). Applications of an energy-balance model to the late-Pleistocene Little Cottonwood Canyon glacier with implications regarding the paleohydrology of Lake Bonneville. Kay, P.A., Diaz, H.F., Problems of and prospects for predicting Great Salt Lake levels. 40–53.Google Scholar
Mitchell, V.L., (1976). The regionalization of climate in the western United States. Journal of Applied Meteorology 15, 920–927.Google Scholar
Munroe, J.S., (2005). Glacial geology of the northern Uinta Mountains. Dehler, C.M., Pederson, J.L., Sprinkel, D.A., Kowallis, B.J., Uinta Mountain Geology. Publication 33. Utah Geological Association, Salt Lake City, UT 215–234.Google Scholar
Munroe, J.S., Mickelson, D.M., (2002). Last Glacial Maximum equilibrium-line altitudes and paleoclimate, northern Uinta Mountains, Utah, U.S.A. Journal of Glaciology 48, 257–266.Google Scholar
Munroe, J.S., Laabs, B.J.C., Shakun, J.D., Singer, B.S., Mickelson, D.M., Refsnider, K.A., Caffee, M.W., (2006). Latest Pleistocene advance of alpine glaciers in the southwestern Uinta Mountains, northeastern Utah, USA: evidence for the influence of local moisture sources. Geology 34, 841–844.Google Scholar
Muzikar, P., Elmore, D., Granger, D.E., (2003). Accelerator mass spectrometry in geologic research. Geological Society of America Bulletin 114, 643–654.Google Scholar
Oerlemans, J., Knap, W.H., (1998). A 1 year record of global radiation and albedo in the ablation zone of Morteratschgletscher, Switzerland. Journal of Glaciology 44, 231–238.Google Scholar
Oerlemans, J., Anderson, B., Hubbard, A., Huybrechts, P., Johannesson, T., Knap, W.H., Schmeits, M., Stroeven, A.P., van de Wal, R.S.W., Wallinga, J., Zuo, Z., (1998). Modelling the response of glaciers to climate warming. Climate Dynamics 15, 267–274.Google Scholar
Owen, L.A., Finkel, R.C., Minnich, R.A., Perez, A.E., (2003). Extreme southwestern margin of late Quaternary glaciation in North America: timing and controls. Geology 31, 729–732.Google Scholar
Oviatt, C.G., (1994). Quaternary geologic map of the upper Weber River drainage basin. Summit County, Utah. Utah Geological Survey Map 156.Google Scholar
Oviatt, C.G., (1997). Lake Bonneville fluctuations and global climate change. Geology 25, 155–158.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paterson, W.S.B., (1994). The physics of glaciers. third edition Elsevier, Oxford.Google Scholar
Phillips, F.M., Zreda, M.G., Gosse, J.C., Klein, J., Evenson, E.B., Hall, R.D., Chadwick, O.A., Sharma, P., (1997). Cosmogenic 36Cl and 10Be ages of Quaternary glacial and fluvial deposits of the Wind River Range, Wyoming. Geological Society of America Bulletin 109, 1453–1463.Google Scholar
Plummer, M.A., (2002). Paleoclimate conditions during the last deglaciation inferred from combined analysis of pluvial and glacial records.: [Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation], New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, , New Mexico., 346 pp.Google Scholar
Plummer, M.A., Phillips, F.M., (2003). A 2-D numerical model of snow/ice energy balance and ice flow for paleoclimatic interpretation of glacial geomorphic features. Quaternary Science Reviews 22, 1389–1406.Google Scholar
Putkonen, J., Swanson, T., (2003). Accuracy of cosmogenic ages for moraines. Quaternary Research 59, 255–261.Google Scholar
Refsnider, K.A., (2006). Late Pleistocene glacial and climate history of the Provo River drainage. Uinta Mountains, Utah. [Unpublished M.S. thesis]: University of Wisconsin - Madison, , Madison., WI, 121.Google Scholar
Refsnider, K.A., Laabs, B.J.C., Mickelson, D.M., (2007). Glacial geology and equilibrium line altitude reconstructions for the Provo River drainage, Uinta Mountains, Utah, U.S.A. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research 39, 529–536.Google Scholar
Stone, J.O., (2000). Air pressure and cosmogenic isotope production. Journal of Geophysical Research 105, 23,753–23,759.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M., Reimer, P.J., Reimer, R.W., (2005). CALIB 5.0.2 [WWW program and documentation]. University of Washington and Belfast, Queen's University of Belfast. URL: <www.calib.org>.Google Scholar
Zreda, M.G., Phillips, F.M., Elmore, D., (1994). Cosmogenic 36Cl in unstable landforms 2. Simulations and measurements on eroding moraines. Water Resources Research 30, 3127–3136.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Refsnider et al. Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material

Download Refsnider et al. Supplementary Material(PDF)
PDF 512.3 KB