HR: 1340h
AN: B33A-0228 [Abstracts]
TI: Radiocarbon Dates Link Marine Incursion and Neoglacial Ice Terminus Advance With Tlingit Ethnohistory
and Archeology in Lower Glacier Bay
AU: * Connor, C L
EM: cathy.connor@uas.alaska.edu
AF: Natural Sciences
University Alaska Southeast, 11120 Glacier Highway, Juneau, AK 99801
United States
AU: Monteith, D
EM: daniel.monteith@uas.alaska.edu
AF: Social Sciences
University Alaska Southeast, 11120 Glacier Highway, Juneau, AK 99801
United States
AU: Howell, W
EM: Wayne_Howell@nps.gov
AF: Glacier Bay National Park, P.O. Box 120, Gustavus, AK 99826
United States
AU: Strevelar, G
EM: grigori@gustavus.ak.us
AF: Icy Straits Environmental Services, P.O. Box 94, Gustavus, AK 99826
United States
AU: Leirer, M
EM: bubbabones23@hotmail.com
AF: Natural Sciences
University Alaska Southeast, 11120 Glacier Highway, Juneau, AK 99801
United States
AB:
Radiocarbon dates from wood, organic sediments, and marine shells were collected from eroded beach terraces and upper beach
sediments in the Beardslee Islands and Berg Bay in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska. These provide a timetable for the the
outwash plain construction and final advance of the Late Neoglacial glacier front over this outwash plain into lower Glacier
Bay. On Kidney Island in the central Beardslee Islands, marine sediments containing {\it Macoma baltica} shells were
deposited 4310 +/- 40 years BP. Outwash from advancing up-bay glaciers, buried these sediments and created terrestrial
substrates upon which forests existed by 1630 +/- 60 BP and 1300 +/- 50 yrs BP. Final ice advance over this forested outwash
plain occurred after 430 +/- 60 BP (1430 to 1510 AD) on Kidney Island. This ice arrived at the southern edge of Lester Island
in Bartlett Cove after 370 +/- 50 BP (1440 to 1520 AD); preceding the arrival of George Vancouver in 1794 AD. In nearby Icy
Straits, archeological investigations have yielded some of the oldest dates of human occupation in the region at 10,180 +/-
800 uncorrected years BP (Ackerman, 1968).
In Glacier Bay's ethno-historically rich areas of Bartlett Cove, the Beardslee Islands and Berg Bay the Huna people have
names for places and narratives that describe late Neoglacial landscapes. {\bf S'\'{e} Shuyee} is the "area at the end of the
glacial mud", {\bf L'awsha Shakee Aan} "town on top of the glacial sand dunes". There are accounts of villages overrun by
surging glaciers, and a name for the bay {\bf Sit' eeti Geeyi} that translates as "bay in place of the glacier". These dates
provide linkage between the geological, archeological, and ethnohistorical evidence that chronicles the history of the Huna
people in this dynamic glacier marine environment.
DE: 4842 Modeling
DE: 3210 Modeling
DE: 3309 Climatology (1620)
DE: 1615 Biogeochemical processes (4805)
DE: 1620 Climate dynamics (3309)
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting