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A Glacial Geomorphological Map of Victoria Island, Canadian Arctic

Storrar, R.; Stokes, C.R.

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Authors

R. Storrar



Abstract

Victoria Island lies at the north-western extremity of the region covered by the vast North American Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. This area is significant because it linked the interior of the LIS to the Arctic Ocean, probably via a number of ice streams. Victoria Island, however, exhibits a remarkably complex glacial landscape, with several successive generations of ice flow indicators superimposed on top of each other and often at abrupt (90°) angles. This complexity represents a major challenge to those attempting to produce a detailed reconstruction of the glacial history of the region. This paper presents a map of the glacial geomorphology of Victoria Island. The map is based on analysis of Landsat Enhanced Thematic Plus (ETM+) satellite imagery and contains over 58,000 individual glacial features which include: glacial lineations, moraines (terminal, lateral, subglacial shear margin), hummocky moraine, ribbed moraine, eskers, glaciofluvial deposits, large meltwater channels, and raised shorelines. The glacial features reveal marked changes in ice flow direction and vigour over time. Moreover, the glacial geomorphology indicates a non-steady withdrawal of ice during deglaciation, with rapidly flowing ice streams focussed into the inter-island troughs and several successively younger flow patterns superimposed on older ones. It is hoped that detailed analysis of this map will lead to an improved reconstruction of the glacial history of this area which will provide other important insights, for example, with respect to the interactions between ice streaming, deglaciation and Arctic Ocean meltwater events.

Citation

Storrar, R., & Stokes, C. (2007). A Glacial Geomorphological Map of Victoria Island, Canadian Arctic. Journal of Maps, 3(1), 191-210. https://doi.org/10.1080/jom.2007.9710838

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Jan 1, 2007
Deposit Date May 27, 2014
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Journal of Maps
Publisher Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 3
Issue 1
Pages 191-210
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/jom.2007.9710838

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Copyright Statement
This article is made available under the Creative Commons licence Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.5).





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