Historic retreat of Grand Pacific and Melbern Glaciers Saint Elias Mountains, Canada: an analogue for decay of the Cordilleran ice sheet at the end of the Pleistocene?

Abstract

Abstract Grand Pacific and Melbern Glaciers, two of the largest valley glaciers in British Columbia, have decreased over 50% in volume in the last few hundred years (total ice loss = 250–300 km3). Melbern Glacier has thinned 300–600 m and retreated 15 km during this period; about 7 km of this retreat occurred between the mid-1970s and 1987, accompanied by the formation of one of the largest, presently existing, ice-dammed lakes on Earth. Grand Pacific Glacier, which terminates in Tarr Inlet at the British Columbia-Alaska boundary, retreated 24 km between 1879 and 1912. This rapid deglaciation has destabilized adjacent mountain slopes and produced spectacular ice-marginal land forms. The sediments and land forms produced by historic deglaciation in Melbern–Grand Pacific valley are comparable, both in style and scale, to those associated with the decay of the Cordilleran ice sheet at the end of the Pleistocene (c. 14–10 ka BP). Rates of historic and terminal Pleistocene deglaciation also may be comparable.