Intertidal boulder pavements in the northeastern Gulf of Alaska and their geological significance

Abstract

Striated boulder pavements, consisting of planar concentrations of clasts having striated upper surfaces, are a common feature of glacigenic deposits but their origin is not well understood. Laterally extensive pavements are currently forming in the intertidal zone west of Icy Bay in the Gulf of Alaska. Pavements comprise “armoured” layers of interlocking boulders, one clast thick, that have been eroded from underlying outcrops of Late Cenozoic glaciomarine diamictites; they originate essentially as lag surfaces along a high energy, storm-dominated, mesotidal shoreline. Boulder pavements are either flat or show a “nucleated” plan form where successively smaller boulders have been accreted around a large core boulder. Nucleation imparts a hummocky surface topography to the pavements and suggests that some form of size sorting of clasts has occurred. Packing is promoted by repeated tamping of the clast lag by floating masses of glacier ice which become grounded across the intertidal zone at low tide. Repeated abrasion of the pavement surface by debris contained within ice blocks produces smooth, flattened clast upper surfaces and short, randomly oriented striations. Data from Icy Bay can be used to constrain the origin of laterally extensive boulder pavements exposed in Late Cenozoic glaciomarine sediments on Middleton Island. The significance of such pavements in the geologic record is that they form along erosional unconformities and may identify sequence boundaries.