Trials and Tribulations of Life on an Active Subduction Zone: Field Trips in and around Vancouver, Canada
This volume, prepared for the 126th GSA Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada, offers guides to trips in the Cascadia subduction zone. The active tectonism of the region has had a profound effect on the bedrock and surficial geology of the area, and on human interactions with the geologic environment. These themes are reflected in the trips associated with the meeting. Trip topics relate to bedrock geology, volcanism and Cordilleran glaciation and deglaciation, as well as human interaction with the natural environment. The trips that discuss human interaction cover archaeology, natural hazards and the urban environment, as well as the role that local geology and tectonism have played in shaping colonization of the region since the last glaciation. The field guide volume has something for everyone!
The life and times of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet around the southern Fraser Plateau, British Columbia
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Published:January 01, 2014
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CiteCitation
Tracy A. Brennand, Olav B. Lian, Andrew J. Perkins*, 2014. "The life and times of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet around the southern Fraser Plateau, British Columbia", Trials and Tribulations of Life on an Active Subduction Zone: Field Trips in and around Vancouver, Canada, Shahin Dashtgard, Brent Ward
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Abstract
This field guide focuses on glacial history, dynamics and processes, and postglacial landscape adjustments in the southern Fraser Plateau region. Located between the Coast and Columbia Mountains in south-central British Columbia, Canada, the southern Fraser Plateau was near the geographic center of the last (marine oxygen isotope stage [MIS] 2) Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS). The transition from cold to warm-based ice during MIS 2 is recorded in till sedimentology and structural geology. The perceived absence of large deglacial recessional moraines has been used as evidence that ice regionally stagnated because of a rapid rise in equilibrium line altitude. However, glacioisostatic rebound orientations, ice-marginal channel and grounding-line and push moraine distributions, and reconstructions of late-glacial ice-marginal lake evolution suggest a systematic northwestward pattern of active ice-margin retreat toward the Coast Mountains, accompanied by regional thinning. Eskers and erosional corridors record drainage of supraglacial lakes or ice-marginal water sources in or over thin ice. Many ice-dammed lakes drained catastrophically. Following lake drainage, streams incised valley fills, leaving behind terraces capped by paraglacial fans and eolian sediment. In sum, we examine (1) valley-fill sediments that record Quaternary history dating back to the early or mid-Pleistocene; (2) till, moraines, erosional corridors, and eskers that provide evidence for MIS 2 CIS dynamics and hydrology; (3) late-glacial ice-marginal lake sediments and landforms that allow reconstruction of lake evolution and drainage, and changing ice-margin positions; and (4) the character and ages of river terraces, paraglacial fans, and eolian sediments that record the timing and nature of postglacial landscape adjustments.
- British Columbia
- Canada
- Cenozoic
- clastic sediments
- Coast Mountains
- Cordilleran ice sheet
- deglaciation
- eskers
- field trips
- fluvial features
- geophysical methods
- glacial features
- glacial geology
- glacial lakes
- glaciation
- ground-penetrating radar
- isostasy
- lacustrine environment
- lake sediments
- lakes
- landform evolution
- landscapes
- meltwater
- MIS 2
- moraines
- orientation
- paleoenvironment
- paleohydrology
- Pleistocene
- Quaternary
- radar methods
- reconstruction
- resistivity
- road log
- sediments
- till
- Western Canada
- Fraser Plateau
- south-central British Columbia
- Columbia Mountains
- Thompson Valley
- Lake Thompson
- Jesmond Valley