Age verification of the Lake Gribben forest bed and the Younger Dryas Advance of the Laurentide Ice Sheet

Abstract

Analysis of nine wood samples from the Lake Gribben forest bed near Lake Gribben, Michigan, yielded a combined age of 10 025 ± 100 14C years BP, which confirms and refines prior age estimates for the bed. The stratigraphic position of these samples below a prograding ice-contact fan indicates the time that a glacial margin reached the southern edge of the Lake Superior basin. Geomorphic tracing and correlation of associated deposits indicate that a contemporaneous margin extended almost 1000 km from Duluth, Minnesota, across the Lake Superior basin to North Bay, Ontario. Along the southern shore of Lake Superior ice-margin expansion began during and ended at the close of the Younger Dryas. A surging glacier system would not produce a nearly linear moraine system across both a major basin (Lake Superior) and a major upland (Abitibi Upland). Therefore, we attribute this advance of the Laurentide Ice Sheet to climatic forcing of the Younger Dryas event.