Studies of Glacial History in Arctic Canada. II. Interglacial Peat Deposits on Bathurst Island

Abstract

Sixteen radiocarbon age determinations on peat deposits and buried organic layers at 10 localities within the Queen Elizabeth Islands have resulted in ages between >30 000 and >51 000 years. Similar results have been obtained from the southern Arctic islands, and as yet only one meaningful finite date in the 50 000 to 25 000 year-range has resulted from the dating of driftwood or in situ terrestrial organic materials in the entire archipelago.On Bathurst Island, where two dates of >50 000 years have been obtained, evidence from the assemblages of mosses, vascular plants, and insects in peat and organic layers indicates that climatic conditions were somewhat more favorable than at present when these deposits were forming. The available data are such that all deposits cannot necessarily be related to the same non-glacial interval, but the extensive deposits along the Stuart River are hereby assigned to the Stuart River Interglaciation.The lack of organic materials dating between 50 000 and 25 000 years in the Queen Elizabeth Islands may be because: (1) the area was ice-covered throughout Wisconsin time; (2) any mid-Wisconsin non-glacial interval was too short or had too severe a climate for deposits to accumulate; (3) organic deposits relating to this interval have been eroded; or (4) deposits of this age do exist but they have not been collected.