Age determination and glacier model for a small ice cap on Baffin Island ...

• Main Authors: Pendleton, Simon, Miller, Gifford H, Anderson, Robert A, Crump, Sarah E, Zhong, Yafang, Jahn, Alexandra, Geirsdóttir, Áslaug
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2017
• Subjects: Ice measurement; Baffin Island; Baffin; glacier*; Tundra
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.881156; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.881156

Records of Neoglacial glacier activity in the Arctic constructed from moraines are often incomplete due to a preservation bias toward the most extensive advance, usually the Little Ice Age. Recent warming in the Arctic has caused extensive retreat of glaciers over the past several decades, exposing preserved landscapes complete with in situ tundra plants previously entombed by ice. The radiocarbon ages of these plants define the timing of snowline depression and glacier advance across the site, in response to local summer cooling. Although most dead plants recently exposed by ice retreat are rapidly removed from the landscape by erosion, where erosive processes are unusually weak, dead plants may remain preserved on the landscape for decades. In such settings, a transect of plant radiocarbon ages can be used to construct a near-continuous chronology of past ice margin advance. Here we present radiocarbon dates from the first such transect on Baffin Island, which directly dates the advance of a small ice cap ... : Supplement to: Pendleton, Simon; Miller, Gifford H; Anderson, Robert A; Crump, Sarah E; Zhong, Yafang; Jahn, Alexandra; Geirsdóttir, Áslaug (2017): Episodic Neoglacial expansion and rapid 20th Century retreat of a small ice cap on Baffin Island, Arctic Canada and modeled temperature change. Climate of the Past Discussions, 1-15 ...