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Tropical ocean‐atmospheric forcing of Late Glacial and Holocene glacier fluctuations in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru
Author(s) -
Stansell Nathan D.,
Licciardi Joseph M.,
Rodbell Donald T.,
Mark Bryan G.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2016gl072408
Subject(s) - moraine , holocene , glacier , geology , glacial period , younger dryas , oceanography , physical geography , last glacial maximum , climatology , geomorphology , geography
Evaluating the timing and style of past glacier fluctuations in the tropical Andes is important for our scientific understanding of global environmental change. Terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide ages on moraine boulders combined with 14 C‐dated clastic sediment records from alpine lakes document glacial variability in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru during the last ~16 ka. Late Glacial ice extents culminated at the start of the Antarctic Cold Reversal and began retracting prior to the Younger Dryas. Multiple moraine crests dating to the early Holocene mark brief readvances or stillstands that punctuated overall retreat of the Queshque Valley glacier terminus during this interval. Glaciers were less extensive during the middle Holocene before readvancing during the latest Holocene. These records suggest that tropical Atlantic and Pacific ocean‐atmospheric processes exerted temporally variable forcing of Late Glacial and Holocene glacial changes in the Peruvian Andes.