New England Deglacial History

New England was last deglaciated between 21,000 and 12,000 years ago. In order to test the utility of cosmogenic nuclides to date such young events and to determine what, if any, nuclides might have been inherited from prior periods of exposure, we collected samples from outcrops and boulders on and near Mt. Katahdin in Maine and Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. We find that most samples match the radiocarbon chronology well for deglaciation but that several bedrock samples from Mount Washington and Katahdin have more than expected concentrations of both 10-Be and 26-Al suggesting inheritance from prior interglacial periods and the presence locally of weakly-erosive, cold-based ice.

Project Support

NSF EAR-9702643 - CAREER award -- Timing and Distribution of Extreme Hydrologic Events
Proposal Project Summary (download pdf)

People Working on this Project

Paul Bierman
Marc Caffee
P. Thompson Davis
Jennifer Larsen

Publications Related to this Project

Bierman, P.R., Brown, S., Bryan, K., Lini, A., Nichols, K.K., Wright, S., Whalen, T., Zehfuss, P., and Davis, P.T., 2001, Post-glacial surface processes of northern New England, GSA Field Trip, Boston 2001. (download pdf)

Abstracts Related to this Project

Bierman, P.R., Davis, P.T., and Caffee, M.W., 2000, Old surfaces on New England summits imply thin Laurentide ice: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, v. 31, p. A-330. (download pdf)

Bierman, P.R., Davis, P.T., Marsella, K., Colgan, P.M., Mickelson, D.M., Larsen, P., and Caffee, M., 1998, What do glaciers take away? What do they leave behind?: Geological Society of America, 1998 annual meeting Abstracts with Programs - Geological Society of America, v. 30, p. 299. (download pdf)