HR: 0800h
AN: PP31A-1507    [Abstracts]
TI: Post-Glacial and Paleo-Environmental History of the West Coast of Vancouver Island
AU: * Dallimore, A
EM: audrey.dallimore@nrcan.gc.ca
AF: Geological Survey of Canada-Pacific, PO Box 6000, Sidney, BC V8L 4B2 Canada
AU: Enkin, R J
EM: renkin@nrcan.gc.ca
AF: Geological Survey of Canada-Pacific, PO Box 6000, Sidney, BC V8L 4B2 Canada
AB: Annually laminated sediments in anoxic fjords are potentially ideal paleoclimate recorders, particularly once proxy measurements for atmospheric, oceanographic and sedimentological conditions have been calibrated. On the west coast of Canada, these sediments also record the changing environment as glaciers retreated from this area about 12 ka y BP. In Effingham Inlet, a 40 m core taken from the French ship the Marion Dufresne as part of the international IMAGES/PAGES program, gives evidence of an isolation basin at maximum glacial isostatic rebound and lowest paleo-sea level followed by eustatic sea level rise about 10 ka y BP. The Late Pleistocene record also marks dramatic changes in glacial sedimentary source and transport. Excellent chronological control is provided by complementary yet independent dating methods including radiocarbon dates on both plants and shells, identification of the Mazama Ash, varve counting and paleomagnetic, paleosecular variation correlations in the lower, pro-glacial section of the core which does not contain organic material. Paleoenvironmental evidence from this core provides information on immediate post-glacial conditions along the coast and rapid climatic changes throughout the Holocene, with implications for the possibility of early human migration routes and refugia.
DE: 4914 Continental climate records
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005