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Reconstructed topography of Southern New England prior to isostatic rebound with implications of total isostatic depression and relative sea level

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2012

Bryan A. Oakley  and
Jon C. Boothroyd
Bryan A. Oakley*
Affiliation:
Department of Geosciences, College of the Environment and Life Sciences, University of Rhode Island, USA
Jon C. Boothroyd
Affiliation:
Department of Geosciences, College of the Environment and Life Sciences, University of Rhode Island, USA Rhode Island Geological Survey, USA
*
⁎Corresponding author at: Department of Geosciences, University of Rhode Island, 317 Woodward Hall, 9 East Alumni Ave, Kingston, RI 02881, USA. Fax: + 1 401 874 2191. Email Address: BOakley@my.uri.edu
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Abstract

Topographic models of the late Quaternary landscape prior to isostatic rebound aid interpretation of glacial lake-water levels and geomorphic features as well as ice thickness, mantle viscosity and lithospheric strength. The well-established limit of glacial marine inundation in central and northern New England provides a test of total isostatic depression. Relative sea levels reflecting differing magnitudes of isostatic rebound show that published values of isostatic depression in southern New England would inundate the landscape in southern New England with marine water south of the limit of late Pleistocene marine inundation. This suggests that isostatic depression at the terminal margin of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) was < 35 m, and that previous workers overestimate isostatic depression in southern New England by > 50 m. A first-order estimate of ice thickness based on total isostatic depression and the observed uplift profile in southern New England supports the ‘thin ice’ models in New England. Ice thickness ranged from 100 m at the southeastern margin of the LIS, to > 1000 m at a point 300 km north of the terminal margin. This regional model places constraints on continental ice-sheet and geophysical models that should be considered in the future.

Keywords

Isostatic reboundNew EnglandQuaternary topographyRelative sea level

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Type
Articles
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Quaternary Research , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , July 2012 , pp. 110 - 118
Copyright
University of Washington

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