Dendroglaciological Evidence for a Neoglacial Advance of the Saskatchewan Glacier, Banff National Park, Canadian Rocky Mountains

摘要

Seventeen glacially sheared stumps in growth position and abundant detrital wood fragments were exposed by stream avulsion at the terminus of the Saskatchewan Glacier in 1999. The stumps lay buried beneath the glacier and over 5 m of glacial sediment until historical recession and stream incision exposed the 225- to 262-year-old stand of subalpine fir, Englemann spruce and whitebark pine trees. Crossdating and construction of two radiocarbon-controlled floating tree-ring chronologies showed that all the subfossil stumps and boles exposed at this location were killed during a Neoglacial advance of the Saskatchewan Glacier 2,910 ± 60 to 2,730 ± 60 ¹⁴C years B.P. These findings support the Peyto Advance as a regional glaciological response to changing mass balance conditions.