Differential Crustal Recovery and Glacial Chronology (6,700 to 0 BP), West Baffin Island, N.W.T., Canada

Abstract

Eight marine strandlines are delimited on morphological evidence. They dip toward 050° at gradients that decrease with age to the present. The maximum ice load was therefore located southwest of Baffin Island, possibly between Baker Lake and Southampton Island. Five strandlines are associated with Stillstands of the western margin of the residual Baffin Island ice cap. Each strandline is dated by reference to a radiocarbon-controlled emergence curve. The validity of the strandlines is tested by four methods; the strandlines appear as reasonable approximations of crustal deformation through time. Correlative geologic-climatic phases along the western margin of the late-glacial Barnes Ice Cap are indicated by the moraine evidence. The Isortoq Phase is dated about 6,700 BP. It was succeeded by a period of retreat with limited halts. Another major glacial phase, the Flint, occurred about 5,000 BP, and is correlative with the growth of the Ellesmere ice shelf and glacier readvance in other parts of the world. Younger prominent moraines are > 1,700, 700, and 250 years old.