Paleogeographic Significance of Middle Pleistocene Glaciomarine Deposits on Baldwin Peninsula, Northwest Alaska

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Baldwin Peninsula, northwest Alaska, is a middle Pleistocene push-moraine complex composed of marine, fluvial, and glaciogenic sediments. The peninsula was formed by three ice lobes emanating from the De Long and Baird mountains and the Selawik Lowlands in the southwest Brooks Range during the Anaktuvuk River glaciation. This glaciation was nearly an order of magnitude more areally extensive than late Pleistocene glaciations in the same region and occurred c. 500 to 600 ka B.P. based on paleomagnetism, and amino-stratigraphic and morphostratigraphic correlations with other numerically-dated northwest Alaskan deposits. Extensive deposits of massive and laminated clayey silt with striated, faceted stones indicate that local sea level was high as glacial ice reached its maximum extent. Glacio-isostasy does not seem to have been important in maintaining a high relative sea level; therefore we infer that eustatic sea level remained high during ice advance. For this to occur, high latitude glaciation must have preceded the build-up of ice in lower latitudes. The source of moisture for such massive glaciation may have come from submerged Bering and Chukchi shelves, enhanced flow of North Pacific/southern Bering Sea winter storms, reduced intensity of the winter Arctic High, or a combination thereof.