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Timing of the Northern Prince Gustav Ice Stream retreat and the deglaciation of northern James Ross Island, Antarctic Peninsula during the last glacial–interglacial transition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Daniel Nývlt ,
Régis Braucher ,
Zbyněk Engel ,
Bedřich Mlčoch  and
ASTER Team
Daniel Nývlt*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlářská 2, 611 37 Brno, Czechia Czech Geological Survey, Brno branch, Leitnerova 22, 658 69 Brno, Czechia
Régis Braucher
Affiliation:
Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS-IRD-Collège de France, UM 34 CEREGE, Technopôle de l'Arbois, BP80, 13545 Aix-en-Provence, France
Zbyněk Engel
Affiliation:
Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Albertov 6, 128 43 Praha, Czechia Czech Geological Survey, Klárov 3, 118 21 Praha, Czechia
Bedřich Mlčoch
Affiliation:
Czech Geological Survey, Klárov 3, 118 21 Praha, Czechia
ASTER Team
Affiliation:
Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS-IRD-Collège de France, UM 34 CEREGE, Technopôle de l'Arbois, BP80, 13545 Aix-en-Provence, France
*
*Corresponding author at: Department of Geography, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlářská 2, 611 37 Brno, Czechia. Fax: + 420 549 491 487. E-mail address:daniel.nyvlt@seznam.cz (D. Nývlt).
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Abstract

The Northern Prince Gustav Ice Stream located in Prince Gustav Channel, drained the northeastern portion of the Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet during the last glacial maximum. Here we present a chronology of its retreat based on in situ produced cosmogenic 10Be from erratic boulders at Cape Lachman, northern James Ross Island. Schmidt hammer testing was adopted to assess the weathering state of erratic boulders in order to better interpret excess cosmogenic 10Be from cumulative periods of pre-exposure or earlier release from the glacier. The weighted mean exposure age of five boulders based on Schmidt hammer data is 12.9 ± 1.2 ka representing the beginning of the deglaciation of lower-lying areas (< 60 m a.s.l.) of the northern James Ross Island, when Northern Prince Gustav Ice Stream split from the remaining James Ross Island ice cover. This age represents the minimum age of the transition from grounded ice stream to floating ice shelf in the middle continental shelf areas of the northern Prince Gustav Channel. The remaining ice cover located at higher elevations of northern James Ross Island retreated during the early Holocene due to gradual decay of terrestrial ice and increase of equilibrium line altitude. Schmidt hammer R-values are inversely correlated with 10Be exposure ages and could be used as a proxy for exposure history of individual granite boulders in this region and favour the hypothesis of earlier release of boulders with excessive 10Be concentrations from glacier directly at this site. These data provide evidences for an earlier deglaciation of northern James Ross Island when compared with other recently presented cosmogenic nuclide based deglaciation chronologies, but this timing coincides with rapid increase of atmospheric temperature in this marginal part of Antarctica.

Keywords

Northern Prince Gustav Ice StreamAntarctic Peninsula Ice SheetBe-10 exposure datingSchmidt hammer testingPleistocene–Holocene transitionJames Ross Island
Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 82 , Issue 2 , September 2014 , pp. 441 - 449
Copyright
University of Washington

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Footnotes

1 ASTER Team: Maurice Arnold, Georges Aumaître, Didier Bourlès, Karim Keddadouche.

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