11 Future Voices in Geoscience- Undergraduate Research Posters

This session is for two-year college and four-year college and university students presenting research posters in any subdiscipline of geosciences. Posters and presentations will be judged for awards.

Monday, 18 May 2026
8:00 AM - 5:30 PM
Alvarado D/E

Timing the Disappearance of the Late Pleistocene Glaciers in Canyon Creek Valley, Trinity Alps, CA

Paper number: 11-9
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:00 AM – 8:00 AM

Authors

Abstract

The Trinity Alps in northern California provides an exceptional but understudied record of Pleistocene glaciation, and offers insight on unique glacial trends, climatic response, and ecological effects. Despite it being extensively glaciated with evidence for multiple glacier advances over the last 100,000 years, little is known about the timing of glaciation within the Trinity Alps, compared to the much higher elevation in the Sierra Nevada range. This study focuses on Canyon Creek Valley, a south facing valley with evidence for glacier moraines preserved ~14 km and 8 km from the cirque headwall. Due to its south facing nature, the cirques feeding into the valley do not have north facing walls, and thus the glacier had less insolation shielding compared to other valleys within the area. Work in surrounding glacial valleys suggest that the last glacial advance was during the last glacial maximum at about 20 - 16 ka. Interestingly, in Canyon Creek there are few, if any moraines associated with the Last Glacial Maximum. I have used high resolution 1-m DEM to map moraines as well as combined previous mapping with 3 new cosmogenic exposure ages from bedrock on the valley floor to interpret the timing of the last Pleistocene advance and retreat rate of the last time glaciers occupied the valley.  Our new ages will be compared with north-facing adjacent valleys to document the timing of glaciation within this range, as well as any variability between north and south-facing valleys. My hypothesis is that Canyon Creek Valley retreated faster due to its south facing orientation. In addition, my work will highlight the importance of isolation and shielding on glacier sustainability.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 58, No. 4

doi: 10.1130/abs/2026RM-410638

© Copyright 2026 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.