15 Glacial Landscapes as Recorders of Geomorphic Process and Climate Change

Monday, 21 March 2016
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Meeting Room 1

MILLENNIAL-SCALE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE LAST GLACIAL MAXIMUM AND ONSET OF THE TERMINATION: A 10BE CHRONOLOGY OF THE RIGHT LATERAL MORAINES OF THE FORMER PUKAKI GLACIER, SOUTHERN ALPS, NEW ZEALAND

Paper number: 15-10
Program: Theme Sessions
Time: 4:10 PM – 4:30 PM

Authors

Abstract

The last glacial termination is the largest climate reorganization of the past 100,000 years. However, the drivers of this transition from full-glacial to full-interglacial conditions remain enigmatic. Glacial chronologies from middle-latitudes afford insight into atmospheric temperature changes associated with the last glacial termination. The Southern Alps of New Zealand are located at Southern Hemisphere mid-latitudes at the opposite side of the planet from the North Atlantic region. The maritime glaciers of the Southern Alps are particularly sensitive recorders of summertime atmospheric temperature. Precisely documenting when glaciers began to recede from the last glacial maximum (LGM) positions is important for addressing key hypotheses for the last termination. Here, we present a precise 10-Beryllium (10Be) surface exposure-age chronology of glacial deposits from the former Pukaki Glacier that spans the last glacial maximum and onset of the termination. On the basis of this chronology we will discuss hypotheses for what caused the warming that ended the last ice age at the southern middle latitudes.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 48, No. 1

doi: 10.1130/abs/2016NE-272449

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