Abstract
Elevation data from the Connecticut Valley area in western New England provide the first field evidence that suggests a significant delay to crustal rebound in response to unloading of the late-Wisconsinan Laurentide ice sheet. Precisely measured altitudes of topset/foreset contacts in deltas that were sequentially constructed in glacial Lake Hitchcock over a period of at least 2000 years and over a distance of 245 km show a time-transgressive and straight-line profile of tilted uplift with a gradient of 0.9 m/km up to the N20.5W-N21W. Ice retreat in the area covered by the profile occurred between approximately 16,500 B.P. and 14,000 B.P., during which ice retreated twice as fast over the northern half as over the southern half. The lake was controlled at a stable level by a bedrock-floored spillway for all of this time.
A trend surface analysis of the delta altitudes shows an extremely good fit of the data to a straight line, with most points falling within a meter of predicted altitude. Because the profile is so straight over a very long distance and because it represent varying rates of ice retreat, no uplift is indicated for this area for at least 2000 years, until after 14,000 B.P. Altitudes of younger deltas located in the sounthern part of the lake and not related to the ice margin also closely fit the profile, further confirming the concept of delayed uplift. Extension of the profile southward to include the time and area of deglaciation from glacial maximum at Long Island, New York (about 19,500 B>P), suggests a total period of delayed uplift response to glacial unloading of at least 5000 years.
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Koteff, C., Larsen, F.D. (1989). Postglacial Uplift in Western New England: Geologic Evidence for Delayed Rebound. In: Earthquakes at North-Atlantic Passive Margins: Neotectonics and Postglacial Rebound. NATO ASI Series, vol 266. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2311-9_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2311-9_8
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