Lakes of the Huron basin: their record of runoff from the laurentide ice sheet

• Published in: Quaternary Science Reviews
• Main Authors: Michael Lewis, C. F., Moore, Jr, Theodore C., Rea, David K., Dettman, David L., Smith, Alison M., Mayer, Larry A.
• Other Authors: Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, U.S.A.; Center for Great Lakes and Aquatic Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, U.S.A., Center for Great Lakes and Aquatic Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, U.S.A., Geological Survey of Canada, Box 1006, Dartmouth, N.S., Canada B2Y 4A2, Department of Geology, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, U.S.A., Department of Geomatics and Survey Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, N.B., Canada E3B 5A3
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 1994
• Subjects: Geology and Earth Sciences; Science; Hudson Bay; Hudson; Lawrence River; Southern Lake; Ice Sheet; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/31942; http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6VBC-4876DC9-8/2/f12517a8503a364ec12027363d3bf126; https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-3791(94)90008-6

The 189,000 km2 Huron basin is central in the catchment area of the present Laurentian Great Lakes that now drain via the St. Lawrence River to the North Atlantic Ocean. During deglaciation from 21-7.5 ka BP, and owing to the interactions of ice margin positions, crustal rebound and regional topography, this basin was much more widely connected hydrologically, draining by various routes to the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean, and receiving overflows from lakes impounded north and west of the Great Lakes-Hudson Bay drainage divide.Early ice-marginal lakes formed by impoundment between the Laurentide Ice Sheet and the southern margin of the basin during recessions to interstadial positions at 15.5 and 13.2 ka BP. In each of these recessions, lake drainage was initially southward to the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico. In the first recession, drainage subsequently switched eastward along the ice margin to the North Atlantic Ocean. In the second recession, drainage continued southward through the Michigan basin, and later, eastward via the Ontario basin and Mohawk River valley to the North Atlantic Ocean. During the final retreat of ice in the Huron basin from 13 to 10 ka BP, proglacial lake drainage switched twice from the Michigan basin and the Mississippi River system to the North Atlantic via the Ontario basin and Mohawk River valley, finally diverting to the Champlain Sea in the St. Lawrence River valley at about 11.6 ka BP.New seismo- and litho-stratigraphic information with ostracode data from the offshore lacustrine sediments were integrated with the traditional data of shorelines, uplift histories of outlets, and radio-carbon-dated shallow-water evidence of transgressions and regressions to reconstruct the water level history and paleolimnological record for the northern Huron basin for the 11-7 ka BP period. Negative excursions in the [delta]18O isotopic composition of ostracodes and bivalves in southern Lake Michigan, southwestern Lake Huron and eastern Lake Erie indicate an influx of water from ...