Last Glacial Maximum and deglaciation of devon island, Arctic Canada: support for an Innuitian Ice Sheet

The extent and origin of Quarternary glaciers in the Queen Elizabeth Islands of Arctic Canada, especially during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), has been debated for well over a century. No consensus has yet emerged and the spectrum of interpretations within the last decade is the broadest ever. The glacial geology of Devon Island strongly supports the Late Wisconsinan Innuitian Ice Sheet hypothesis. During LGM, the southeastern part of the Queen Elizabeth Islands was covered by an ice sheet flowing from a centre, or a divide centrally located, in the archipelago. Another ice divide extended from the centre across Devon Island. Flow from the Innuitian centre and convergent how from Devon Island, and probably also from Cornwallis and Bathurst Islands, sustained an ice stream in Wellington Channel. Ice was locally advancing to its LGM limit about 23 ka BP. Recession in the vicinity of the present coastline was underway by 10 ka BP and final ice remnants west of the present Devon Ice Cap vanished about 8 ka BP. The island bears the same two-part landscape zonation as do other islands and peninsulas in the region. These reflect a cold-based core and warm-based periphery at LGM. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.