Holocene emergence of the south and east coasts of Melville Island, Queen Elizabeth Islands, Northwest Territories, Canada.

Abstract

25 14C dates from the coast of Melville Island show that there has been up to 100m of Holocene emergence. The Winter Harbour moraine on the S coast is thought to mark the maximum northward advance of the Laurentice Ice. However, emergence for this area appears to be essentially complete, whereas the NE coast is still recovering at a rate of approximately 0.35 cm/yr. Ice cover in the region to the NE must, therefore, have been thicker and/or lasted longer than in the peripheral areas of the Laurentide Ice, lending support to the concept of an Innuitian Ice Sheet, rather than local ice masses over the central Queen Elizabeth Islands. This ice sheet may have had a thermal regime below the pressure melting point, thus depriving the ice of much of its erosive and depositional capabilities, but with a sufficient mass to account for the observed pattern of emergence. -from Authors