Origin, burial and preservation of late Pleistocene-age glacier ice in Arctic permafrost (Bylot Island, NU, Canada)

Coulombe, Stephanie; Fortier, Daniel; Lacelle, Denis; Kanevskiy, Mikhail; Shur, Yuri

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-97-2019

Articles | Volume 13, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-97-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-97-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 1

Research article

|

11 Jan 2019

Research article |

| 11 Jan 2019

Origin, burial and preservation of late Pleistocene-age glacier ice in Arctic permafrost (Bylot Island, NU, Canada)

Stephanie Coulombe, Daniel Fortier, Denis Lacelle, Mikhail Kanevskiy, and Yuri Shur

Data sets

Isotope characterization of ground ice on Bylot Island, v.1.0. (2013-2015) Daniel Fortier, Stéphanie Coulombe, Denis Lacelle https://doi.org/10.5885/45564CE-8A9A55185FBD4283

Short summary

This study provides a detailed description of relict glacier ice preserved in the permafrost of Bylot Island (Nunavut). We demonstrate that the 18O composition (-34.0 0.4 ‰) of the ice is consistent with the late Pleistocene age ice in the Barnes Ice Cap. As most of the glaciated Arctic landscapes are still strongly determined by their glacial legacy, the melting of these large ice bodies could have significant impacts on permafrost geosystem landscape dynamics and ecosystems.