1,000-year record of landslide dams at Halden Creek, northeastern British Columbia

Abstract

Large, rapid, low-gradient landslides are common in clay-rich glacial sediments in northeastern British Columbia. Many of the landslides create upstream impoundments that may persist for years in small watersheds in the region. We have documented such events in the Halden Creek watershed, 60 km southeast of Fort Nelson. The events are recorded geologically in two ways. First, trees are drowned in lakes dammed by the landslides and subsequently buried by deltaic sediments, where they are protected from decay. Bank erosion later exhumes the drowned trees. Second, landslide deposits with entrained wood are exposed along stream banks. We have reconstructed the recent history of landslide damming at Halden Creek by performing radiocarbon dating on exhumed trees and wood in and beneath landslide deposits at 13 sites in the watershed. Drowned trees range in age from 169±59 to 274±49 14C year bp. Wood in and below landslide deposits yielded radiocarbon ages ranging from modern to 965±49 14C year bp.