A post-glacial sea level hinge on the central Pacific coast of Canada (original) (raw)
Related papers
A post-glacial sea level hinge on the central Pacific coast of Canada (McLaren et al. 2014)
Post-glacial sea level dynamics during the last 15,000 calendar years are highly variable along the Pacific coast of Canada. During the Last Glacial Maximum, the Earth's crust was depressed by ice loading along the mainland inner coast and relative sea levels were as much as 200 m higher than today. In contrast, some outer coastal areas experienced a glacial forebulge (uplift) effect that caused relative sea levels to drop to as much as 150 m below present levels. Between these inner and outer coasts, we hypothesize that there would have been an area where sea level remained relatively stable, despite regional and global trends in sea level change. To address this hypothesis, we use pond basin coring, diatom analysis, archaeological site testing, sedimentary exposure sampling, and radiocarbon dating to construct sea level histories for the Hakai Passage region. Our data include 106 newly reported radiocarbon ages from key coastal sites that together support the thesis that this area has experienced a relatively stable sea level over the last 15,000 calendar years. These findings are significant in that they indicate a relatively stable coastal environment amenable to long-term human occupation and settlement of the area. Our results will help inform future archaeological investigations in the region.
Science, 1997
Marine Gares tram the continental shelf edge of British Columbia (Canada) demonstrate that sea level at the shelf edge was 153 meters below present 14,000 calendar years aga and more than 30 meters lower th an the maximum eustatic low of -120 meters. Dated artifacts, including stone tools, indicate that humans occupied this region by at least 10,200 calendar years before present (B.P.). Local sea level rose rapidly (5 centimeters per year) during the period of early human occupation as a result of eustatic sea-ievei ri se and glacio-isostatic forebulge movement. This shelf edge site was first elevated and then subsided. The exposed shelf edge was available forhuman occupation and may have served as a migration route during times of lowered sea levels between 13,500 and 9500 14C years B.P.
Postglacial relative sea-level histories along the eastern Canadian coastline
Quaternary Science Reviews, 2018
We have assembled a database of Relative Sea Level (RSL) data points from the eastern coast of Canada from Hudson Bay to the border with the USA. In compiling this database we have critically reviewed 1092 radiocarbon dated samples from raised beaches, isolation basins, intertidal and marine deposits, and archaeological indicators to produce 405 sea-level index points and 687 sea-level limiting points. Our comprehensive, systematic, and quality-controlled RSL database allowed for the reconstruction of the postglacial evolution of 34 regions of eastern Canada providing new basin-scale insights into the processes driving RSL changes in the last~16 ka. The combination of a database of sea-level index points with an innovative empirical-Bayesian spatio-temporal statistical model provided new insights into rates and magnitude of the spatially-variable glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), which dominated the postglacial RSL evolution in this sector of North America. A continuous postglacial RSL fall is observed at latitudes !~50 N with higher rates (up to 35 mm a À1) recorded in southeastern Hudson Bay. At lower latitudes, the evolution is non-monotonic with RSL that dropped to a spatially variable early-Holocene lowstand, followed by a mid-Holocene highstand and, eventually, a gradual drop to present RSL. This pattern is particularly evident in the St Lawrence corridor. Along the majority of the Newfoundland, New Brunswick and western Nova Scotia coasts, a late-Pleistocene/early-Holocene RSL lowstand was followed by a continuous rise through the Holocene. At the margin of the former ice-sheet (i.e. eastern Nova Scotia), our data identify a continuous RSL rise through the Holocene. These records are characterized by decreasing rates of RSL rise through time, commencing with a rapid rise during the early Holocene (up to~17 mm a À1), a slowdown in the mid-Holocene (average rates ~9 mm a À1), and a further reduction in the late Holocene (average rates < 2 mm a À1). Finally, our database allowed the identification of regions, including the Labrador coast and part of the St Lawrence corridor, where further investigations are required to better constrain the RSL evolution and improve our ability to assess the variability of RSL histories.
Postglacial relative sea-level histories along the Northeastern Canadian coastline
EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts, 2018
We have assembled a database of Relative Sea Level (RSL) data points from the eastern coast of Canada from Hudson Bay to the border with the USA. In compiling this database we have critically reviewed 1092 radiocarbon dated samples from raised beaches, isolation basins, intertidal and marine deposits, and archaeological indicators to produce 405 sea-level index points and 687 sea-level limiting points. Our comprehensive, systematic, and quality-controlled RSL database allowed for the reconstruction of the postglacial evolution of 34 regions of eastern Canada providing new basin-scale insights into the processes driving RSL changes in the last~16 ka. The combination of a database of sea-level index points with an innovative empirical-Bayesian spatio-temporal statistical model provided new insights into rates and magnitude of the spatially-variable glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), which dominated the postglacial RSL evolution in this sector of North America. A continuous postglacial RSL fall is observed at latitudes !~50 N with higher rates (up to 35 mm a À1) recorded in southeastern Hudson Bay. At lower latitudes, the evolution is non-monotonic with RSL that dropped to a spatially variable early-Holocene lowstand, followed by a mid-Holocene highstand and, eventually, a gradual drop to present RSL. This pattern is particularly evident in the St Lawrence corridor. Along the majority of the Newfoundland, New Brunswick and western Nova Scotia coasts, a late-Pleistocene/early-Holocene RSL lowstand was followed by a continuous rise through the Holocene. At the margin of the former ice-sheet (i.e. eastern Nova Scotia), our data identify a continuous RSL rise through the Holocene. These records are characterized by decreasing rates of RSL rise through time, commencing with a rapid rise during the early Holocene (up to~17 mm a À1), a slowdown in the mid-Holocene (average rates ~9 mm a À1), and a further reduction in the late Holocene (average rates < 2 mm a À1). Finally, our database allowed the identification of regions, including the Labrador coast and part of the St Lawrence corridor, where further investigations are required to better constrain the RSL evolution and improve our ability to assess the variability of RSL histories.
Holocene sea-level change on the central west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia
Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 1993
A new Holocene relative-sea-level (RSL) curve is proposed for the central west coast of Vancouver Island based on topographic surveys of coastal landforms and the stratigraphy of coastal deposits. Six study sites are described on Vargas Island and Esowista and Ucluth peninsulas and 23 previously unpublished radiocarbon ages that constrain mean-sea-level (MSL) position are presented. A long-term rise in RSL from an early Holocene ( > 7000 BP) lowstand below -3 m as1 is documented from dates on tree stumps in the intertidal zone and salt-marsh peats and forest-floor deposits buried by marine sands and gravels. Submergence culminated in a stillstand from 6000 to 4800 BP, marked by the development of a strandline at 6 m as1 (MSL = 3.2 m asl). A fall in RSL is documented by a strandline at 4.0-4.5 m asl, which dates from 2700 to 2000 BP (MSL = 2.0 m asl). Little is known of the dynamics of emergence between 4800 and 2700 BP or from 2000 BP to the present, although the absence of strandlines below 4 m as1 suggests continuous emergence during the last two millenia. This submergence-emergence cycle is unique in southern British Columbia. A simple simulation model suggests that late Holocene emergence was induced by tectonic uplift of the edge of the America plate margin.
Late Quaternary sea levels and crustal movements, coastal British Columbia
Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 1982
passage des eaux de fonte des glaces de la calotte vers l'ocean, et aux interactions des plaques sur la marge continentale de la Colombie-Britannique. Au Pleistockne supkrieur et B 1'Holockne inferieur les mouvements de la croubte Ctaient principalement de nature isostatique. Bien que la recente regression sur la cbte externe semble resulter, au moins en partie, d'un soulkvement tectonique, une certaine variation du niveau de la mer B 1'Holockne supkrieur dans cette region a pu relever soit d'une cause eustatique ou d'une reaction isostatique residuelle la deglaciation qui s'est produite des rnilliers d'annks auparavant.
Boreas, 2017
After retreat of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS) and subsequent glacio-isostatic adjustment of the central coast of British Columbia (BC), Canada, a complex coastline emerged as relative sea level rapidly reached equilibrium and maintained stability over the end of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. This study provides a late Quaternary reconstruction of the landscape evolution of a geographically distinct location on the central BC coast, northwest Calvert Island, which experienced a re-advance of the CIS near the end of the Late Pleistocene and minimal subsequent relative sea-level change. Geomorphological observations from LiDAR imagery, sedimentological and palaeoecological evidence from exposures, cores and shovel pits, and a robust luminescence and 14 C-based chronology spanning the last 15 000 years are used to reconstruct the landscape of northwest Calvert Island following CIS retreat. A singlealiquot regenerative dose protocol that was developed specifically for luminescence dating of the sediments on Calvert Islandwas utilized in this study. Localized proglacial sedimentation was linked to the glacial re-advance experienced at the end of the Late Pleistocene. Extensive coastal reconfiguration (e.g. rapid shoreline progradation of >1 m a À1) occurred in the absence of extensive RSL change, which was the main driver of coastal change elsewhere along the BC coast. Changes in climate, small magnitude changes in RSL, and fire all probably played a role in isolated aeolian landform development and stabilization in the study area. An important contribution of this study is the documentation of the multidisciplinary approach for reconstructing palaeogeography, using multiple geochronological methods, micro-and macro-sedimentology, the palaeoecology inferred from both macro and microfossils (e.g. diatoms and foraminifers), stratigraphy, field mapping and remote sensing. In addition, these findings inform our understanding of the drivers of coastal sedimentary processes, particularly in the temperate coastal rainforest region of BC, and the role that fire may play in those processes. Coastal palaeogeography studies in the region will become increasingly important as discoveries of Late Pleistocene human habitation along the coastal migration route continue to be documented.
Marine Geology, 1995
Grounded Piedmont type glaciers inundated and isostatically loaded the deep troughs which indent the Western Canadian continental shelf, as far west as the shelf edge. Glaciers do not appear to have covered the offshore banks east of the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii). Ice retreated from the shelf at approximately 13,500 14C yr B.P. Rapid emergence of the crust followed the ice retreat and resulted in a relative fall of sea level. At 10,400 14C yr B.P. relative sea level on the continental shelf was more than 100 m below that of today and large areas of the Queen Charlotte Basin were subaerially exposed. Eustatic sea-level rise, coupled with subsidence of a glacioisostatic forebulge, allowed sea levels to rise very rapidly, and reach the present shoreline on the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii) by about 9100 14C yr B.P. Dated shoreline deposits (shells), submerged wood remnants, and barnacles on stone tools at elevations between -110 m and + 14 m suggest a sea-level rise of 6.3 cm per year between 12,200 and 11,000 calender years. Our reconstructions of the paleogeography and paleoenvironments suggest a hospitable environment for human habitation existed in areas that are now submerged. Stone tools excavated from intertidal deposits support this interpretation. Significant local variations in the depth of synchronous shorelines are described and attributed to localized differences in isostatic load. The documented rates of crustal adjustment are much greater than those used in conventional geophysical (forebulge) models. Regional high-resolution seismic reflection data (3400 line km) shows little evidence for post-glacial faulting and suggest that most crustal adjustments appear to have been isostatically rather than tectonically driven.