Dendrogeomorphological assessment of movement at hilda rock glacier, banff national park, canadian rocky mountains

Abstract

The results of this dendrogeomorphological study provide evidence of the active movement of Hilda rock glacier, a tongue‐shaped rock glacier in the Columbia Icefield region of Banff National Park. Cross‐sectional samples were cut from 44 detrital subalpine fir (Abies Iasiocarpa (Hook.) Nutt.) and Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii Parry) boles killed and buried by debris spilling off the steep distal slope of the rock glacier. The samples were crossdated using locally and regionally developed tree‐ring chronologies, and were shown to have been killed between 1576 and 1999. Our results show that Hilda rock glacier has advanced at an average rate of 1.6 cm/year since the late 1790s, with limited evidence of similar rates of activity extending back to the mid‐1570s. This rock glacier activity is believed to be linked to persistent periglacial processes that appear to be independent of the climatic forcing mechanisms known to influence glacier mass balances over the same interval.