Title

Late Pleistocene glaciation and deglaciation in the Crestone Peaks area, Colorado Sangre de Cristo Mountains, USA – chronology and paleoclimate

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-15-2017

Embargo Period

1-17-2017

Publication Title

Quaternary Science Reviews

Abstract

Cosmogenic 10Be surface-exposure dating and numerical glacier modeling are used to reconstruct glacial chronology and climate in the Colorado Sangre de Cristo Mountains during the local last glacial maximum (LLGM) and the subsequent deglaciation. Twenty-two surface-exposure ages on moraine boulders and polished-bedrock outcrops in the Willow Creek valley and ten in two adjacent valleys indicate that glaciers were at or near their maxima from ∼21 ka until 17–16 ka, and then retreated rapidly, nearly deglaciating the Willow Creek valley entirely by ∼14 ka. Coupled energy/mass-balance and flow modeling of two of the glaciers indicates that, if changing ice extent was driven only by temperature and insolation changes, temperature depressions of 5.0 and 5.1 °C from modern conditions, with an uncertainty of approximately +1.5/−1.0 °C, would have sustained the glaciers in mass-balance equilibrium at their LLGM extents. Doubling or halving of modern precipitation during the LLGM would have been associated with 2.7–3.0 °C and 6.9–7.0 °C temperature depression respectively. Approximately half of the subsequent LLGM–to-modern climate change was accomplished by ∼14 ka. If the rapid main phase of deglaciation between about 16 ka and 14 ka was driven solely by temperature and insolation changes, it would have been associated with a temperature rise of about 2.5 °C, at a mean rate of approximately 1.1 °C/ky. This new chronology of the last glaciation is generally consistent with others developed recently in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The numerical modeling, however, suggests a lesser LLGM temperature depression from modern conditions than have most previous studies in Colorado.

Volume

158

First Page

127

Last Page

144

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.11.024

ISSN

0277-3791

Comments

Available through ScienceDirect at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.11.024

Rights

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Primo Type

Article

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