Tephrochronologic Constraints on the Late Pleistocene History of the Southern Margin of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, Western Washington

Abstract

An ash layer that appears geochemically correlative with Mt. St. Helens tephra set S occurs in a sequence of Pleistocene lake sediments in the Ohop Valley of the southern Puget Lowland, below Vashon till deposited during the maximum late Pleistocene advance (Fraser Glaciation) of the Puget Lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet. The Puget Lobe reached its maximum southern extent ca. 14,000–14,500 yr B.P., and at least part of set S is evidently somewhat older. Previous radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates for set S have ranged from 13,000 to 16,000 yr B.P.Geochemically correlative deposits of set S tephra occur in slackwater sediments coeval with the Missoula Floods in eastern Washington, produced by jökulhlaups through the Purcell Trench Lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet. These relationships suggest that advances of glacier lobes on the southern margin of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet were nonsynchronous, as the Pucell Trench lobe east of the Cascade Range advanced to its maximum southern extent prior to the time of the eruption of set S, before the Puget Lobe west of the Cascades reached its maximum southern extent.