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Periglacial Climate at the 2.5 Ma Onset of Northern Hemisphere Glaciation Inferred from the Whippoorwill Formation, Northern Missouri, USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Charles W. Rovey  and
Greg Balco
Charles W. Rovey*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Geology, and Planning. Missouri State University, 901 S. National, Springfield, MO, 65897, USA
Greg Balco
Affiliation:
Berkeley Geochronology Center, 2455 Ridge Road, Berkeley, CA 94709, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail address:charlesrovey@missouristate.edu
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Abstract

The Whippoorwill Formation is a gleyed diamicton that is present locally within bedrock depressions beneath the oldest glacial till in northern Missouri, USA. Stratigraphy, paleomagnetism, and cosmogenic–nuclide burial ages show that it was deposited between the Matuyama–Gauss magnetostratigraphic boundary at 2.58 Ma and the first advance of the Laurentide ice sheet into Missouri at 2.47 ± 0.19 Ma. High cosmogenic–nuclide concentrations also show that the constituents of the Whippoorwill Formation experienced long exposure at a stable landscape surface with erosion rates of 1–2 m/Ma. However, cosmogenic–nuclide concentrations are invariant with depth below the Whippoorwill Formation surface, indicating active mixing of the soil profile shortly before burial by till. The Whippoorwill Formation retains numerous features indicative of cryoturbation. Therefore, we interpret it as a buried Gelisol, a soil formed under periglacial conditions in the presence of permafrost. At the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation, climate cooling established permafrost conditions and accelerated erosion by inducing landscape instability. Thus, weathered regolith materials were mobilized and redeposited by gelifluction shortly before the ice sheet overrode the landscape.

Keywords

Cosmogenic nuclidesBurial datingGelifluctionGelisolsMissouriPeriglacial processesLaurentide ice sheet10Be26Al
Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 73 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 151 - 161
Copyright
University of Washington

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