Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, 50(1)
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UVicSPACE: Research & Learning Repository _____________________________________________________________ Faculty of Social Sciences Faculty Publications _____________________________________________________________ An inventory of rock glaciers in the central British Columbia Coast Mountains, Canada, from high resolution Google Earth imagery Ansley A. Charbonneau & Dan J. Smith 2018 © 2018 Ansley A. Charbonneau & Dan J. Smith. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This article was originally published at: https://doi.org/10.1080/15230430.2018.1489026 Citation for this paper: Charbonneau, A. A. & Smith, D. J. (2018). An inventory of rock glaciers in the central British Columbia Coast Mountains, Canada, from high resolution Google Earth imagery. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, 50(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/15230430.2018.1489026 Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research An Interdisciplinary Journal ISSN: 1523-0430 (Print) 1938-4246 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uaar20 An inventory of rock glaciers in the central British Columbia Coast Mountains, Canada, from high resolution Google Earth imagery Ansley A. Charbonneau & Dan J. Smith To cite this article: Ansley A. Charbonneau & Dan J. Smith (2018) An inventory of rock glaciers in the central British Columbia Coast Mountains, Canada, from high resolution Google Earth imagery, Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, 50:1, e1489026, DOI: 10.1080/15230430.2018.1489026 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15230430.2018.1489026 © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & View supplementary material Francis. Published online: 24 Jul 2018. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1243 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 7 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=uaar20 ARCTIC, ANTARCTIC, AND ALPINE RESEARCH 2018, VOL. 50, NO. 1, e1489026 (24 pages) https://doi.org/10.1080/15230430.2018.1489026 An inventory of rock glaciers in the central British Columbia Coast Mountains, Canada, from high resolution Google Earth imagery Ansley A. Charbonneau and Dan J. Smith Department of Geography, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Little is known about the presence, distribution, age, or activity of rock glaciers in the British Received 13 March 2017 Columbia Coast Mountains of western Canada. Reflecting debris accumulation and mass wasting Revised 27 May 2018 under a periglacial climate, these rock glaciers describe a geomorphic response to permafrost Accepted 5 June 2018 regimes that may or may not presently exist. An inventory of rock glacier landforms in the eastern KEYWORDS front ranges of the Coast Mountains, using high-resolution Google Earth imagery, documented Rock glacier; British 165 rock glaciers between lat. 50°10ʹ and 52°08ʹ N. The majority of these rock glaciers occur at Columbia Coast Mountains; sites positioned between 1,900 and 2,300 m above sea level, where rain shadow effects and periglacial; permafrost; tree continental air masses result in persistent dry, cold conditions. Morphology and field observation rings suggest that these features contain intact ice. The rock glaciers occupy predominately northwest- to northeast-facing slopes, with talus-derived rock glaciers largely restricted to north-facing slopes. Glacier-derived features outnumber talus-derived features by a ratio of 5:1. Several of the inventoried rock glaciers were located up valley from presumed Younger Dryas terminal moraines, indicating that they formed after 9390 BP. Dendrogeomorphological investigations at one rock glacier record contemporary activity that resulted in 1.3 cm/yr of frontal advance since AD 1674. This inventory is the first to document the presence of rock glaciers in the Coast Mountains and supports preliminary understandings of permafrost distribution in the south- western Canadian Cordillera. Introduction (Haeberli et al. 2006; Humlum 2000), their occurrence The British Columbia Coast Mountains flank the Pacific describes a geomorphic response to permafrost thermal coast of western Canada, rising from sea level to more regimes that may or may not presently exist (Humlum than 4,000 m in the Mt. Waddington area (Figure 1). 1998). While a provisional map suggests that much of Along their windward maritime slopes, deep winter the region is currently favorable for the development and snow packs persist into the summer months, allowing persistence of permafrost (Hasler, Geertsma, and for the development of high-elevation ice fields and large Hoelzle 2014), it remains to be determined whether valley glaciers. Eastward glaciers decrease in size and these landforms are the fossilized remains of rock gla- number, because strong rain shadow effects result in a ciers active during Late Pleistocene or Holocene perma- subcontinental environment in the front ranges abutting frost conditions or whether they illustrate a geomorphic the Chilcotin Plateau. While ice fields are absent in the response to present-day permafrost environments. front ranges and glaciers are largely restricted to shaded The intent of this research was to document the dis- northeast-facing high-elevation cirques (Falconer, tribution and general characteristics of rock glaciers in the Henoch, and Østrem 1965; Østrem 1966; Østrem and southeastern front ranges of the Coast Mountains. We Arnold 1970), satellite imagery shows that rock glaciers hypothesized that the spatial and altitudinal distribution of varying size and morphology are abundant. of rock glaciers in this region would allow for interpreta- Little is known about the presence, distribution, age, tion of their paleohistory in the context of Holocene cli- or activity of rock glaciers in the Coast Mountains matic variability, and would allow for further (French and Slaymaker 1993). Reflecting debris accumu- understanding of the present-day occurrence of permafrost lation and mass wasting under a periglacial climate within this setting. To achieve these objectives, the CONTACT Dan J. Smith [email protected] © 2018 The author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. e1489026-2 A. A. CHARBONNEAU AND D. J. SMITH Figure 1. Map of British Columbia, Canada, showing the location of the front ranges study area. Mountain peaks are provided for geographic reference. characteristics of a large sample of rock glaciers from the that creep downslope under the weight of gravity region are compared to regional climatic gradients and (Barsch 1996; Haeberli 1985; Haeberli et al. 2006). topographic conditions. Dendrochronology was used at Transverse ridges and longitudinal furrows are the sur- one rock glacier site to gain an understanding of contem- face expression of this internal ice deformation (Barsch porary rock glacier geomorphology. 1996; Frehner, Ling, and Gärtner-Roer 2014). The surface of most rock glaciers consists of a sea- sonally thawed active layer characterized by angular Research background boulders and large interstitial spaces. This debris man- The term rock glacier is associated with a range of tle acts as a filter between external climatic conditions landform types found in arctic and alpine environ- and the permanently frozen interior below the perma- ments (Janke et al. 2013). By definition, rock glaciers frost table (Haeberli et al. 2006; Humlum 1996; consist of perennially frozen masses of ice and debris Wahrhaftig and Cox 1959). Cold, dense air settles in ARCTIC, ANTARCTIC, AND ALPINE RESEARCH e1489026-3 the interstitial spaces between the rocks and cools the patches of permafrost (up to 10%) at the highest alti- permafrost despite short-term surface fluctuations in tudes (Brown and Péwé 1973; Hasler, Geertsma, and snow cover and above 0°C air temperatures (Humlum Hoelzle 2014; Heginbottom, Dubreuil, and Harker 1997). Rock glaciers, therefore, provide evidence of the 1995; Rodenhuis et al. 2007). Mean annual air tempera- lower extent of permafrost because of their ability to tures (1969–1990) range between −5°C and 0°C at the maintain a frozen state despite the general trend of highest elevations on the lee side of the range, with warmer mean annual air temperatures at lower eleva- precipitation totals averaging 750 mm/yr or greater tions (Boeckli et al. 2012; Lilleøren and Etzelmuller (Dawson, Werner, and Murdock 2008). 2011; Lilleøren et al. 2013a; Scotti et al. 2013). The region is located within the Coast Mountain In high mountain regions, rock glaciers commonly Belt, a major tectonic feature located between the form at sites characterized by cool air temperatures and Insular and Intermontane superterranes of western moderate amounts of precipitation (Haeberli 1985; British Columbia that were accreted along the conti- Humlum 1998). While rock glaciers are occasionally nental margin from Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous found in maritime climate regions (Humlum 1982; time (Journeay and Friedman 1993). Deformation and Lilleøren et al. 2013a; Martin and Whalley 1987), their contraction resulted in the deposition of preexisting distribution is largely