Erosion rates during rapid deglaciation in Icy Bay, Alaska

Abstract

Contemporary glacial erosion rates based on sediment yields in southeast Alaska merit considerable attention because they are unsurpassed worldwide, and they significantly exceed long‐term exhumation rates in the region. Two issues are likely to contribute to these high rates: contemporary sediment yields in fjords (1) have generally been overestimated by failing to account for the considerable input of subaerially derived material and (2) are exceptionally high because tidewater glaciers in southeast Alaska have been anomalously dynamic and erosive during the past century of rapid retreat. To investigate these influences and to quantify the rate at which Tyndall Glacier erodes its basin we present seismic data defining the volume of sediments in Taan Fjord, Icy Bay. We subtract the contribution of subaerially derived sediments from the fjord sediment package to determine the sediment yield directly from Tyndall Glacier during the most recent period of retreat: 1962–1999. Using a numerical model of proglacial glacimarine sedimentation, we then calculate the annual sediment yield from, and the corresponding erosion rate of, Tyndall Glacier during this period, which averages 28 ± 5 mma−1. A strong correlation emerges between glacial retreat rates and glacial sediment yields, implying that most contemporary sediment yield data from retreating tidewater glaciers may correspond to contemporary erosion rates that are a factor of 3.5 ± 1.5 higher than in the long term. Hence we estimate the long‐term erosion rate for Tyndall Glacier to be 9 ± 2 mma−1.