Formation of the Neoglacial Surge Moraines of the Klutlan Glacier, Yukon Territory, Canada

• Published in: Quaternary Research
• Main Author: Driscoll, Fletcher G.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1980
• Subjects: glacier*; Yukon
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0033-5894(80)90004-6; http://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:0033589480900046?httpAccept=text/xml; http://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:0033589480900046?httpAccept=text/plain; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S003358940001557X

Abstract The Klutlan Glacier is a valley glacier 82-km long emerging from the Icefield Ranges of the St. Elias Mountains. It is one of at least 200 surging glaciers identified in western North America. During about the past 1200 yr, the glacier has deposited at its terminus a series of at least 7 surge-related Neoglacial ice-cored moraines. Lithologic characteristics of the Klutlan moraines suggest that they have resulted principally from the surging of the tributary Nesham Glacier, which periodically injects a lobe of medial and lateral moraines and the underlying ice into a more slowly moving Klutlan ice stream. Subsequent surges of the main ice carry the Nesham surge lobes to the Klutlan terminus as discrete geomorphic features. For the past 400 yr a Nesham lobe has reached the Klutlan terminus at approximately 80-yr intervals.