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Extent and Timing of the Last Glacial Maximum in Southwestern Alaska

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Daniel H. Mann  and
Dorothy M. Peteet
Daniel H. Mann
Affiliation:
P. O. Box 81826, Fairbanks, Alaska 99708
Dorothy M. Peteet
Affiliation:
NASA-Goddard Institute, 2880 Broadway, New York, New York 10025
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Abstract

A glacier complex composed of confluent alpine glaciers, island ice caps, and piedmont lobes covered much of the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island during the last glacial maximum (LGM). Because this glacier complex formed the southeastern border of Beringia, its dynamics may have been important in the timing and feasibility of the northwest coast route for human migration into lower-latitude North America. Radiocarbon dates from stratigraphic sections on Kodiak Island and in the Bristol Bay lowlands bracket the LGM in southwestern Alaska between 23,000 and 14,700 yr B.P. Reconstruction of ice thickness based on glacier trimlines, moraines, and calculations of basal-shear stress depict the Alaska Peninsula Glacier Complex flowing to the outer edge of the continental shelf in the Gulf of Alaska. Equilibrium-line altitudes (ELAs) were 300 to 700 m lower than today and approached sea level on the southwestern Alaska Peninsula. In northeastern areas where ELAs were higher, bedrock topography largely controlled ice flow except where ice saddles bridged straits and inlets.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , September 1994 , pp. 136 - 148
Copyright
University of Washington

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