Correlation and Chronology of Marine Transgressions in Western Alaska (Collaborative Research)

阿拉斯加西部和北部的晚新生代海洋沉积物覆盖着梯田和沿海平原，提供了对高海平面事件的异常详细的记录，是北极任何地区已知的最完整的记录。这些沉积物夹杂着冰川漂移序列，包含了一本宝贵的北极古气候年鉴，并确定了北冰洋冰盖的起源时间和随后的大部分历史。晚新生代海相沉积中的化石还记录了海洋和大陆的扩散事件，从而补充了大洋间的对比。这项调查将把氨基酸年代学、热释光和古地磁研究应用于暴露在圣劳伦斯岛、西沃德半岛和Kotzebue Sound周围的海侵沉积物中，以评估和纠正先前发表的年龄对比。因此，这项研究将使人们更加确切地了解阿拉斯加西部和北部海平面变化的范围和时间，并将为发展北极古气候和古海洋制度的天气学知识提供极为有用的一系列时间平面。

Late Cenozoic marine deposits blanketing terraces and coastal plains in western and northern Alaska provide an exceptionally detailed record of high sea level events, the most complete known in any part of the Arctic. Interbedded with glacial drift sequences, these deposits contain an invaluable almanac of Arctic paleoclimates, and establish the time of origin and much of the subsequent history of the Arctic Ocean ice cover. Fossils in the late Cenozoic marine deposits also record both marine and continental dispersal events and thus supplement and interoceanic correlations. This investigation will apply amino-acid geochronology, thermoluminescence, and paleomagnetic studies to marine transgressive deposits exposed on St. Lawrence Island, Seward Peninsula, and around Kotzebue Sound in order to evaluate and correct previously published age correlations. The study will thus result in a much firmer knowledge of the extent and timing of sea-level changes in western and northern Alaska and will provide an extremely useful series of time planes for the development of synoptic knowledge of Arctic paleoclimates and paleo-oceanographic regimes.