THE LATE QUATERNARY HISTORY OF GREELY FJORD AND ITS TRIBUTARIES, WEST-CENTRAL ELLESMERE ISLAND

Moraines and meltwater channels mark the limit of the last glaciation that interfingered with the sea around the perimeter of Greely Fiord and its tributaries. The extent of this ice advance was dictated predominantly by its proximity to the sea. Consequently, the large tidewater glaciers at the fiord heads today were so constrained by calving that they advanced only 5-10 km. Similarly, grounding-line deposits from widespread plateau ice caps also terminate just below marine limit. The most extensive outlet glaciers, which advanced 20-35 km beyond present margins, are simply those that had access to the most extensive terrain above marine limit, ie, the NW margin of the Agassiz Ice Cap. The modest extent of the last ice limit encircling Greely Fiord, together with its occupancy by the full glacial sea, is fully compatible with the paleogeography previously reported from NE Ellesmere Island and NW Greenland. Furthermore, this data base provides a reinterpretation of a 500 km transect previously reported along west-central Ellesmere Island to the south and affirms that the Innuitian Ice Sheet, defined sensu stricto for the last glaciation, is supplanted by the full glacial Innuitian Sea, which penetrated the Queen Elizabeth Islands, constraining the last ice limit. -from Author