Holocene coastal glaciation of Alaska

Abstract

Holocene fluctuations of the three cirque glaciers on the Seward Peninsula and five groups of tidewater- and land-terminating glaciers along the northernmost Gulf of Alaska, provide a proxy record of late Holocene climatic change. Furthermore, the movements of the coastal glaciers were relevant to late Holocene native American migration. The earliest expansion was recorded about 6850 yr BP by Hubbard Glacier at the head of Yakutat Bay in the Gulf of Alaska; however, its down-fjord advance to the bay mouth was delayed until ∼2700 BP. Similarly, expansions of the Icy Bay, Bering, and McCarty glaciers occurred near their present termini by ∼3600–3000 BP, compatible with marked cooling and precipitation increases suggested by the Alaskan pollen record. Decrease in glacier activity ∼2000 BP was succeeded by advances of Gulf coastal glaciers between 1500 and 1300 BP, correlative with early Medieval expansions across the Northern Hemisphere. A Medieval Optimum, encompassing at least a few centuries prior to AD 1200 is recognized by general retreat of land-terminating glaciers, but not of all tidewater glaciers. Little Ice Age advances of land-based glaciers, many dated with the precision of tree-ring cross-dating, were centered on the middle 13th or early 15th centuries, the middle 17th and the last half of the 19th century A.D. Strong synchrony of these events across coastal Alaska is evident.