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Annals of the Association of American Geographers Volume 65, 1975 - Issue 4
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Article

CIRQUE ELEVATION IN THE CANADIAN CORDILLERA

A. S. TRENHAILE Associate Professor of Geography, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, N9B 3P4
Pages 517-529 | Accepted 19 May 1975, Published online: 15 Mar 2010

  • 1 A. Penck, Die Morphologie der Erdoberfläche (Stuttgart: J. Engelhorn, 1894), Vol. 2, p. 327.
  • 2 E. Richter, Die Gletscher der Ostalpen (Stuttgart: J. Engelhorn, 1888); J. Geikie, The Great Ice Age (London: E. Stanford, 1894), p. 251; and A. Penck and E. Bruckner, Die Alpen im Eiszeitalter (Leipzig: C. H. Tauchnitz, 1909). The orographic snowline is the lower limit of perennial snow. The cirque “snow-line” referred to in this paper is the glacier equilibrium line altitude. This line separates the accumulation area of a glacier from the ablation area, and lies close to the floor of a cirque.
  • 3 R. F. Flint, Glacial and Pleistocene Geology (New York: John Wiley, 1957).
  • 4 J. A. Peterson and G. Robinson Trend Surface Mapping of Cirque Floors,”Nature, Vol. 222 (1969), pp. 75 76; and D. J. Unwin, “The Distribution and Orientation of Corries in Northern Snowdonia, Wales,”Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 58 (1973), pp. 85 97.
  • 5 Flint, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 309; and S. C. Porter, “Composite Pleistocene Snow Line of Olympic Mountains and Cascade Range, Washington,”Geological Society of America Bulletin, Vol. 75 (1964), pp. 477 81.
  • 6 G. östrem, “The Height of the Glaciation Limit in Southern British Columbia and Alberta,”Geografiska Annaler, Vol. 48A (1966), pp. 126 38; and G. östrem, “The Transient Snowline and Glacier Mass Balance in Southern British Columbia and Alberta, Canada,”Geografiska, Annaler, Vol. 55A (1973), pp. 93 106. The glaciation limit as used by östrem is the mean of the altitude of the highest icefree mountain and the lowest nearby mountain carrying a glacier.
  • 7 östrem (1966), op. cit., footnote 6, p. 133.
  • 8 H. S. Bostock, Physiography of the Canadian Cordillera, with Special Reference to the Area North of the Fifty-Fifth Parallel, Geological Survey of Canada Memoir 247 (Ottawa: Department of Mines and Technical Surveys, 1946); and H. S. Bostock, Physiographic Subdivisions of Canada,” in R. J. W. Douglas, ed., Geology and Economic Minerals of Canada (Ottawa: Department of Energy, Mines, and Resources, 1970), pp. 10–30.
  • 9 Flint, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 303.
  • 10 Flint, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 305; and C. J. Heusser, “Postglacial Environments in the Canadian Rocky Mountains,”Ecological Monographs, Vol. 26 (1956), pp. 263 302.
  • 11 Heusser, op. cit., footnote 10, p. 267; and D. K. MacKay and F. A. Cook, “A Preliminary Map of Continentality for Canada,”Geographical Bulletin, Vol. 20 (1963), pp. 76 81.
  • 12 Cirque elevation was measured in the field for example, by B. Seddon, “Late-glacial Cwm Glaciers in Wales,”Journal of Glaciology, Vol. 3 (1957), pp. 94 99; and by D. Sugden, “The Age and Form of Corries in the Cairngorms,”Scottish Geographical Magazine, Vol. 83 (1969), pp. 34 46. Data were derived from maps and air photographs by D. L. Linton, “Morphological Contrasts in Eastern and Western Scotland,” in R. Miller and W. Watson, eds., Geographical Essays in Memory of A. G. Ogilvie (Edinburgh: Nelson, 1959), pp. 16–45; and by R. F. Flint and F. Fidalgo, “Glacial Geology of the East Flank of the Argentine Andes between Latitude 39° 10' S. and Latitude 41° 20' S.,”Geological Society of America Bulletin, Vol. 75 (1964), pp. 335 52.
  • 13 Flint, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 100.
  • 14 J. T. Andrews, R. G. Barry, and L. Drapier, “An Inventory of the Present and Past Glacierization of Home Bay and Okoa Bay, East Baffin Island, N.W.T., Canada, and Some Climatic and Palaeoclimatic Considerations,”Journal of Glaciology, Vol. 9 (1970), pp. 337 62; G. Robinson, J. A. Peterson, and P. M. Anderson, “Trend Surface Mapping of Corrie Altitudes in Scotland,”Scottish Geographical Magazine, Vol. 87 (1971), pp. 142 46; and Unwin, op. cit., footnote 4.
  • 15 D. F. Merriam and J. W. Harbaugh, Trend-surface Analysis of Regional and Residual Components of Geologic Structure in Kansas, Special Distribution Publication 11 (Topeka, Kansas: Kansas State Geological Survey, 1964).
  • 16 G. Robinson, “Trials on Trends through Clusters of Cirques,”Area, Vol. 4 (1972), pp. 104 13.
  • 17 P. J. Clarke and F. C. Evans Distance to Nearest Neighbour as a Measure of Spatial Relationships in Population,”Ecology, Vol. 35 (1954), pp. 445 53. Robinson, Peterson, and Anderson, op. cit., footnote 14, obtained an r value of 0.41 for cirques in Scotland, and nwin, op. cit., footnote 4, p. 90, found a value of 0.83 for North Wales.
  • 18 J. W. Harbaugh and D. F. Merriam, Computer Applications in Stratigraphic Analysis (New York: Wile, 1968), pp. 71–72. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test confirmed that the frequency distribution of cirque elevation was the same for the reduced sample as for the original sample, at the 99 percent confidence level.
  • 19 G. B. Norcliffe, “On the Use and Limitations of Trend Surface Models,”Canadian Geographer, Vol. 13 (1969), pp. 338 48.
  • 20 F. Chayes, “On Deciding Whether Trend Surfaces of Progressively Higher Order are Meaningful,”Geological Society of America Bulletin, Vol. 81 (1970), pp. 1273 78.
  • 21 östrem (1966), op. cit., footnote 6, p. 133.
  • 22 östrem (1966), op. cit., footnote 6, p. 136.
  • 23 J. T. Andrews, “The Corries of the Northern Nain-Okak Section of Labrador,”Geographical Bulletin, Vol. 7 (1965), pp. 129 36; Peterson and Robinson, op. cit., footnote 4; and Unwin, op. cit., footnote 4.
  • 24 Flint, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 309.
  • 25 Porter, op. cit., footnote 5.
  • 26 Peterson and Robinson, op. cit., footnote 4; and Unwin, op. cit., footnote 4.
  • 27 Robinson, Peterson, and Anderson, op. cit., footnote 14.
  • 28 G. Manley, “The Late-glacial Climate of North-West England,”Liverpool and Manchester Geological Journal, Vol. 2 (1959), pp. 188 215.
  • 29 Manley, op. cit., footnote 28; and östrem (1966), op. cit., footnote 6, p. 128.
  • 30 Manley, op. cit., footnote 28, p. 196.
  • 31 Seddon, op. cit., footnote 12, p. 96; and Unwin, op. cit., footnote 4, p. 94.
  • 32 Seddon, op. cit., footnote 12; and P. McLaren and L. V. Hills, “Cirque Analysis as a Method of Predicting the Extent of a Pleistocene Ice Advance,”Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, Vol. 10 (1973), pp. 1211 25.
  • 33 McLaren and Hills, op. cit., footnote 32, p. 1218.
  • 34 J. K. Charlesworth, The Quaternary Era wit Special Reference to its Glaciation (London: Edwal Arnold, 1957), p. 298; and C. Embleton and C. A. M. King, Glacial and Periglacial Geomorphology (London: Edward Arnold, 1968), pp. 196–98.
  • 35 Charlesworth, op. cit., footnote 34, p. 298; an McLaren and Hills, op. cit., footnote 32, p. 1222.
  • 36 Flint, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 100.
  • 37 Geological map of the Canadian Department of Mines and Geological Survey, 1929, scale 1:63,360.
  • 38 Flint, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 101.
  • 39 Linton, op. cit., footnote 12; Porter, op. cit., footnote 5; and Flint and Fidalgo, op. cit., footnote 12.
  • 40 Linton, op. cit., footnote 12; and Flint and Fidalgo, op. cit., footnote 12. Lower temperatures in summer result in decreased ablation, in winter to an increase in the proportion of precipitation falling as snow.
  • 41 M. F. Meier and A. S. Post, “Recent Variations in Mass Net Budgets of Glaciers in Western North America,” International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, Commission of Snow and Ice, General Assembly of Obergurgl. International Association of Scientific Hydrology, Publ. 58 (1962), pp. 63–77.
  • 42 R. Klebelsberg, Handbuch der Gletscherkunde und Glazialgeologie (Vienna: Springer-Verlag, 1948) p. 403; Manley, op. cit., footnote 28, p. 198; and Andrews, op. cit., footnote 23, p. 135. The cirque glacier equilibrium line is assumed to have been coincident with the floor of the cirque, rather than some distance above it, but the difference is slight for small cirques.
  • 43 Flint and Fidalgo, op. cit., footnote 12, p. 340; C. Emiliani, “Pleistocene Temperatures,”Journal of Geology, Vol. 63 (1955), pp. 538 78; and Flint, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 486. A suitable network of climatological stations is not available to calculate a specific lapse rate for this area, nor am I aware of any research which is directly applicable to this area.
  • 44 F. Klute, “Über die Ursachen der Letzten Eiszeit,”Geographie Zeitschrift, Vol. 27 (1921), pp. 199 203; Charlesworth, op. cit., footnote 34; and Flint, op. cit., footnote 3.
  • 45 J. G. Souther, “Volcanism and its Relationship to Recent Crustal Movements in the Canadian Cordillera,”Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (Symposium on Recent Crustal Movement), Vol. 7 (1970), pp. 553 68, considers that crustal movement has been slight in Postglacial and Recent time in the region of the study area.
  • 46 G. H. Miller, R. S. Bradley, and J. T. Andrews, “The Glaciation Level and Lowest Equilibrium Line Altitude in the High Canadian Arctic: Maps and Climatic Interpretation,”Arctic and Alpine Research, Vol. 7 (1975), pp. 155 68.
  • 47 L. D. Williams, “The Variation of Corrie Elevation and Equilibrium Line Altitude with Aspect in Eastern Baffin Island, N.W.T., Canada,”Arctic and Alpine Research, Vol. 7 (1975), pp. 169 81.
  • 48 Williams, op. cit., footnote 47, p. 171.
  • 49 Porter, op. cit., footnote 5, p. 481.
  • 50 Porter, op. cit., footnote 5, p. 481.

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