The Cordilleran Ice Sheet: one hundred and fifty years of exploration and discovery

Abstract

Present concepts about the Cordilleran Ice Sheet are the product of observations and ideas of several generations of earth scientists. Local and regional fluctuations of the ice sheet have been reconstructed through stratigraphic and sedimentological studies, supported by radiocarbon and other dating techniques. Compilations of late Pleistocene ice-flow directions have shown that the Cordilleran Ice Sheet was a mass of coalescent glaciers flowing in a complex fashion from many montane source areas. During the post-war period, research has also begun or advanced significantly in several other disciplines, notably glaciology, process sedimentology, geomorphology, paleoecology, and marine geology. -from Authors