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Surge Moraines of the Klutlan Glacier, Yukon Territory, Canada: Origin, Wastage, Vegetation Succession, Lake Development, and Application to the Late-Glacial of Minnesota☆

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

H. E. Wright Jr.
H. E. Wright Jr.*
Affiliation:
Limnological Research Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455 USA
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Abstract

The Klutlan Glacier in the St. Elias Mountains of the Yukon Territory has surged repeatedly during the last few hundred years, and its drift-covered stagnant ice provides an analog for the downwastage, landform development, vegetational succession, and lake formation on Late Wisconsin moraines of Minnesota. Melting of the buried ice caused collapse of the drift mantle and the formation of lakes, which become filled with sediment that slumps in from receding ice walls. Topographic reversals are common, as the sediment cover of drained lakes inhibits local under-melting, and collapse occurs elsewhere. As the drift mantle thickens the land surface becomes stabilized and pioneer herbs are succeeded by shrubs and then by white spruce. The oldest moraines (600–1200 yr old) have a multiple-generation spruce forest, yet melting of buried ice still locally forms young lakes. Cores of organic sediment from the oldest lakes contain a stratigraphic sequence of pollen, diatoms and cladocerans that record the early stages in lake and landscape succession.

Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , July 1980 , pp. 2 - 18
Copyright
University of Washington

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Footnotes

☆

Contribution 198, Limnological Research Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

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