Early Pleistocene volcanism and glaciation in central Yukon: a new chronology from field studies and paleomagnetism

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Abstract
The paleomagnetism of the Selkirk Volcanics and nearby stratified Pleistocene sediments was investigated to resolve the chronology of Early Pleistocene glaciations in central Yukon. Radiometric dates on these low-K basalts have proven to be erroneously old. Most sampled sediments and all basalts accurately record the paleofield and true reversals. The valley-filling phase of the Selkirk Volcanics was in part coeval with the younger pre-Reid glaciation. It was erupted during the Matuyama Chron, either post-Cobb Mountain Subchron or post-Jaramillo Subchron, over a period too brief to average secular variation. The older pre-Reid glaciation occurred after ca. 1.60 Ma and prior to the eruption of the Fort Selkirk tephra (pre-Jaramillo or pre-Cobb Mountain). Sediments investigated at Revenue Creek and Braden's Canyon are normally magnetized. The assigned Brunhes age is compatible with their occurrence in valleys that were cut or deepened sometime after the pre-Reid glaciations.