Holocene Glaciation of the Southern Kenai Mountains, Alaska

这项研究将调查最新更新世冰川消融的模式和时间，特别是阿拉斯加西南部基奈半岛冰川波动所记录的全新世气候变化。工作将集中在陆地冰川上，这里缺乏不规则流动的证据，可能会经历与阿拉斯加广泛记录的类似的进退循环，但变化反映了个体方面，位置和假设。相比之下，基奈峡湾国家公园的产冰口冰川在峡湾深度和结构、水循环和冰缘沉积物积聚等因素的影响下，呈现出长期的前进，随后戏剧性的退缩。冰碛蚀变的评价以及放射性碳定年、冰川年代学、地衣年代学和树木年代学等方法将在冰川年代学的建立中得到重要应用。因为大多数冰舌都在森林地区结束，所以对表面进行树木年轮测年和对活树与埋在地下的木材进行选择性交叉测年可能是一种特别有力的测年工具。

This research will investigate the patterns and timing of latest Pleistocene deglaciation and particularly of Holocene climatic change as recorded in fluctuations of glaciers on the Kenai Peninsula, southwest Alaska. Work will focus in the landfast glaciers, which here lack evidence of irregular flow and which may be expected to have experienced cycles of advance and retreat similar to those that are widely recorded in Alaska, but with variations reflecting individual aspect, position and hypsometry. Calving outlet glaciers in the Kenai Fjords National Park, by contrast, have displayed prolonged advanced followed by dramatic retreat in cycles dominated by such factors as fjords depth and configuration, water circulation, and ice-marginal sediment accumulation. Evaluation of moraine modification as well as the methods of radiocarbon dating, tephrochronology, lichenomentry and dendrochronology, will be critically applied in building the glacial chronology. Because most of the ice tongues end in forested areas, tree-ring dating of surfaces and selective cross-dating of living trees with buried wood may be a particularly powerful dating tool.