Little Ice Age glacial activity in the Mt. Waddington area, British Columbia Coast Mountains, Canada

Abstract

The establishment of fourteen Little Ice Age (LIA) glacier chronologies in the Mt. Waddington area led to the development of an extended history of glacial activity in this portion of the southern British Columbia Coast Mountains, Canada. The glaciers were located within four different mountain ranges, and were of varying size and aspect. Dendrochronological and lichenometric techniques were used to provide relative age estimates of moraines formed as glacier termini retreated from advanced positions. Evidence for pre-LIA glacial events is best preserved at Tiedemann Glacier, where the oldest glacial advances date to A.D. 620 and 925–933. Soil-covered and well-vegetated moraines built at Cathedral, Pagoda, and Siva glaciers date to between A.D. 1203 and 1226. Following this event, moraines constructed at Ragnarok, Siva, and Cathedral glaciers in the mid-14th century suggest glaciers in the region underwent a period of downwasting and retreat before readvancing. The majority of moraines recorded in the Mt. Waddington area describe late-LIA glacial events shown to have constructed moraines that date to A.D. 1443–1458, 1506–1524, 1562–1575, 1597–1621, 1657–1660, 1767–1784, 1821–1837, 1871–1900, 1915–1928, and 1942–1946. Over the last 500 years, these moraine-building episodes were shown to occur on average every 65 years and suggest there has been prolonged synchronicity in the glaciological response to persistent climate-forcing mechanisms. Nevertheless, our analysis suggests that local factors, such as aspect and size, play an important role in individual glacial response. Notably, ice termini of medium-size glaciers facing eastwards showed a quicker response to climatically induced mass balance changes.

Identifying spatial variations in glacial catchment erosion with detrital thermochronology

“…In the Quaternary the region experienced several phases of glaciation with many glaciers carving U‐shaped valleys and producing glacial deposits [ Osborn and Luckman , ]. Numerous climatological and glaciological studies have dated abandoned terminal moraines of the Tiedemann Glacier, which provide us with a detailed picture of the development of this glacier in the last 6000 years [e.g., Laroque and Smith , , ; Osborn and Luckman , ].…”

Tree ring-dated fluctuation history of Midui glacier since the little ice age in the southeastern Tibetan plateau

“…Tree-ring and lichenometric data from marine glaciers in the Canadian Rockies [13,14,48] show glacier activity of 1767-1784, 1821-1837, 1871-1900, 1915-1928 and 1942-1946. The fluctuations of 1777, 1807-1818, 1874-1894 and 1912-1918 were also evidenced by tree rings in glaciers of Alaska.…”

“…Tree-ring dating, as an accurate method, has been widely used to reconstruct past glacier fluctuations in many areas of the world, such as the Canadian Rockies [11][12][13][14][15][16], the Alaska [17][18][19][20], the Andes [21][22][23][24][25][26], the Alps [27], etc. On the southeastern Tibetan Plateau, there are a great number of temperate glaciers, which account for about 22.2% of the total glacier area in China [6].…”

What Tree Rings Can Tell About Earth‐Surface Processes: Teaching the Principles of Dendrogeomorphology

“…2001; Reyes et al. 2006) and more recently for the Coast Mountains of British Columbia (Allen and Smith 2007; Larocque and Smith 2003; Lewis and Smith 2004; Smith and Desloges 2000).…”