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- Dalton, April S., et al.
(author)
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Deglaciation of the north American ice sheet complex in calendar years based on a comprehensive database of chronological data: NADI-1
- 2023
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In: QUATERNARY SCIENCE REVIEWS. - 0277-3791 .- 1873-457X. ; 321
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The most recent deglaciation of the North American Ice Sheet Complex (NAISC: comprising the Innuitian, Cordilleran, and Laurentide ice sheets) offers a broad perspective from which to analyze the timing and rate of ice retreat, deglacial sea-level rise, and abrupt climate change events. Previous efforts to portray the retreat of the NAISC have been focused largely on minimum-limiting radiocarbon ages and ice margin location(s) tied to deglacial landforms that were not, for the most part, chronologically constrained. Here, we present the first version of North American Deglaciation Isochrones (NADI-1) spanning 25 to 1 ka in calendar years before present. Key new features of this work are (i) the incorporation of cosmogenic nuclide data, which offer a direct constraint on the timing of ice recession; (ii) presentation of all data and time-steps in calendar years; (iii) optimal, minimum, and maximum ice extents for each time-step that are designed to capture uncertainties in the ice margin position, and; (iv) extensive documentation and justification for the placement of each ice margin. Our data compilation includes 2229 measurements of Be-10, 459 measurements of Al-26 and 35 measurements of Cl-36 from a variety of settings, including boulders, bedrock surfaces, cobbles, pebbles, and sediments. We also updated a previous radiocarbon dataset (n = 4947), assembled luminescence ages (n = 397) and gathered uranium-series data (n = 2). After scrutiny of the geochronological dataset, we consider >90% of data to be reliable or likely reliable. Key findings include (i) a highly asynchronous maximum glacial extent in North America, occurring as early as 27 ka to as late as 17 ka, within and between ice sheets. In most marine realms, extension of the ice margin to the continental shelf break at 25 ka is somewhat speculative because it is based on undated and spatially scattered ice stream and geomorphic evidence; (ii) detachment of the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets took place gradually via southerly and northerly 'unzipping' of the ice masses, starting at 17.5 ka and ending around 14 ka; (iii) the final deglaciation of Hudson Bay began at 8.5 ka, with the collapse completed by 8 ka. The maximum extent of ice during the last glaciation occurred at 22 ka and covered 15,470,000 km(2). All North American ice sheets merged at 22 ka for the first time in the Quaternary. The highly asynchronous Last Glacial Maximum in North America means that our isochrones (starting at 25 ka) capture ice advance across some areas, which is based on limited evidence and is therefore somewhat speculative. In the Supplementary Data, the complete NADI-1 chronology is available in PDF, GIF and shapefile format, together with additional visualizations and spreadsheets of geochronological data. The NADI-1 shapefiles are also available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8161764.
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2. |
- Norris, Sophie L., et al.
(author)
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Glacial landforms of northwest Saskatchewan
- 2017
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In: Journal of Maps. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1744-5647. ; 13:2, s. 600-607
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A comprehensive map of glacial landforms is presented for the area of northwest Saskatchewan, Canada. Remote sensing of 1-arc (similar to 30 m resolution) Shuttle Radar Topography Mission digital elevation models over an area of approximately 15,000 km(2) were used as the primary data source for landform identification. A total of 16,856 landforms were identified pertaining to Quaternary glacial and postglacial activity. Ten landform types were mapped: ice flow parallel lineations (flutings, drumlins, mega-scale glacial lineations, and crag-and-tail ridges), moraines (major and minor), ice-thrust ridges, crevasse-fill ridges, meltwater landforms (major and minor meltwater channels and eskers), palaeo-shorelines and dunes. Collectively, these landforms constitute a glacial and postglacial landform record, which exhibits a more complex pattern than previously recognised, with evidence of multiple cross cutting ice flow directions. This geomorphological mapping of the regional landform record provides the prerequisite for future reconstructions of the glacial dynamics and chronology of northwest Saskatchewan.
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3. |
- Wang, Yucheng, et al.
(author)
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Late Quaternary Dynamics of Arctic Biota from Ancient Environmental Genomics
- 2021
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In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 600:7887, s. 86-92
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- During the last glacial–interglacial cycle, Arctic biotas experienced substantial climatic changes, yet the nature, extent and rate of their responses are not fully understood1–8. Here we report a large-scale environmental DNA metagenomic study of ancient plant and mammal communities, analysing 535 permafrost and lake sediment samples from across the Arctic spanning the past 50,000 years. Furthermore, we present 1,541 contemporary plant genome assemblies that were generated as reference sequences. Our study provides several insights into the long-term dynamics of the Arctic biota at the circumpolar and regional scales. Our key fndings include: (1) a relatively homogeneous steppe–tundra fora dominated the Arctic during the Last Glacial Maximum, followed by regional divergence of vegetation during the Holocene epoch; (2) certain grazing animals consistently co-occurred in space and time; (3) humans appear to have been a minor factor in driving animal distributions; (4) higher efective precipitation, as well as an increase in the proportion of wetland plants, show negative efects on animal diversity; (5) the persistence of the steppe–tundra vegetation in northern Siberia enabled the late survival of several now-extinct megafauna species, including the woolly mammoth until 3.9 ± 0.2 thousand years ago (ka) and the woolly rhinoceros until 9.8 ± 0.2 ka; and (6) phylogenetic analysis of mammoth environmental DNA reveals a previously unsampled mitochondrial lineage. Our fndings highlight the power of ancient environmental metagenomics analyses to advance understanding of population histories and long-term ecological dynamics
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4. |
- Wang, Yucheng, et al.
(author)
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Reply to: When did mammoths go extinct?
- 2022
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In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 612:7938, s. 4-6
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)
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