Age constraints of rock glaciers in the Southern Alps/New Zealand - Exploring their palaeoclimatic potential
Summary (2 min read)
Introduction
- Rock glaciers are ice-rich debris creeping with velocities of some centimetres to some metres per year.
- Their development and evolution is highly sensitive to climatic parameters (Brazier et al., 1998; Humlum, 1998; Kääb et al., 2007); rock glaciers constitute thus an important potential as archive for the regional Late Glacial and Holocene palaeoclimatology.
- Furthermore, rock glacier activity does exclude concurrent glacial activity.
- These studies generally reveal considerable age variations on global and hemispheric scales.
Study area
- The high-altitude valley head of Irishman Stream in the Ben Ohau Range between Lakes Ohau and Pukaki is located roughly 30 km southeast of the Main Divide of the Southern Alps.
- It contains a number of separate rock glaciers – two selected for this study (Figures 1–3).
- It comprises two separate segments indicated by a prominent bend in its flow line between ridges 3 and 4 at about 2025/2030 m a.s.l. (Figure 1).
- This coincides with selective surface weathering and the common thin quartz veins, avoided with Schmidt-hammer sampling, stick out by up to 10 mm on Late Glacial boulders.
- But it does not reach the central Ben Ohau Range.
Results
- Application of the electronic Schmidt-hammer, the first such attempt in the context of SHD in New Zealand, yielded a total of c. 4500 sampled boulders during the brief site visits and proved to be very efficient.
- Histograms are provided for these sites (Figures 4 and 5) that all passed the Kolmogorov– Smirnov test for normality.
- Whereas the difference between lowermost and uppermost ridges on both rock glaciers is considerable (approximately R = 10), neighbouring surface ridges do in general not show any statistically significant differences in their means within the overlying trend of increasing R-values towards the rooting zone.
- A few samples in 2016 were taken outside the surface ridges along the longitudinal profiles to gain comparative figures.
- TCND-locations also constitute ridges with a similar micro-climatic environment.
Sites includeda Equationb
- Only one sample (out of 27) needed to be rejected as potential outlier.
- After correcting the raw data for the slight difference of instruments calibration (all 2014 data were reduced by R = 1; see above), all samples on individual sites were integrated accordingly resulting in sample sizes between 100 and 350 boulders each (Table 1).
- It virtually comprises ‘fresh’ rock fall boulders only.
- The age estimates for the rock glacier are, however, contradictory to previous work and clearly exclude substantial glacier activity during the later early, mid-, and late Holocene (Birkeland, 1982; see ‘Discussion’).
Discussion
- The consistent decrease of R-values (and consequently increase of surface weathering grade and exposure age) along the longitudinal profiles towards the rock glacier front corresponds well with existing studies, for example, those of Frauenfelder et al. (2005), Kellerer-Pirklbauer (2008), Rode and Kellerer-Pirklbauer (2011) or Scapozza et al. (2014).
- Such a process is reported by Frauenfelder et al. (2005), who measured an increase of R-value means at the active front of some of their studied rock glaciers because of toppling and relocation of boulders.
- Because the authors followed well-established procedures with the construction of such SHD calibration curves (cf. Matthews et al., 2013, 2014; Matthews and Owen, 2010; Matthews and Winkler, 2011), they review their age estimates as reliable for this type of landform.
- Whereas the age difference between lowermost and uppermost rock glacier ridges of their SHD age estimates clearly exceed the difference suggested by Birkeland (1982), his subdivision at least correctly reflects the close age between the lowermost rock glacier ridges and the inner Late Glacial/early-Holocene moraines.
- If confirmed at other sites across the Southern Alps, rock glacier formation during the first part of the early Holocene also bears potential implications for the regional glacier history.
Conclusion
- The authors study shows that SHD using an electronic Schmidt-hammer can successfully be applied for the dating of rock glaciers in the Southern Alps of New Zealand and is efficient with obtaining large sets of raw data.
- Longitudinal transects on selected rock glaciers reveal a clear trend of decreasing R-values (increasing surface weathering and exposure age) from rock glacier rooting zones towards their front, only altered at the front of ‘active’ ridges by toppling and relocation of boulders.
- Previously published numerical 10Be cosmogenic nuclide ages (Kaplan et al., 2010) enabled the calculation of SHD age-calibration curves and the lowermost transverse surface ridges of the rock glacier are dated to c. 12,000 and 10,500 years, respectively.
- These age estimates indicate rock glacier initiation during or shortly after Termination 1, thereby requiring a fast disappearance of the former (Late Glacial) Irishman Stream glacier at the onset of the Holocene.
- This assumed extended activity during the Holocene combined with the timing of their initiation has palaeoclimatic implications that need to be explored further once it is ensured it constitutes a regional pattern.
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...Located in Mount Cook National Park (New Zealand), it comprises about 450 ha and is characterized by a sequence of lateral and latero-frontal moraines formed 125–3370 290 years ago (Winkler and Lambiel 2018)....
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...This is, moreover, not a trivial task as by contrast to quite detailed information on the horizontal ice sheet margins during the Late Glacial (Hughes et al. 2016), there is still relatively less knowledge about the exact mechanism and local timing of deglaciation within the mountainous parts of central Southern Norway (Dahl et al. 1997; Matthews and Winkler 2011)....
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...In concert with McColl (2012) and Pánek et al. (2016), we consider our RSFs to have occurred during warm phases in the Holocene and the Late Glacial, namely the HTM and the Bølling-Allerød interstadial....
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...This has recently been further improved by the introduction of an electronic version of the Schmidt hammer (Winkler and Matthews 2014) that already has been successfully applied on sorted stone circles (Winkler et al. 2016) and rock glaciers (Winkler and Lambiel 2018)....
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...Furthermore, Tomkins et al. (2016, 2018) show the R-value–age relationship to be linear during the transition from arctic to more temperate conditions (post-LGM to Late Glacial)....
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...…(Table 1), (3) the non-polymodal distribution suggesting no major post-depositional disturbance or polygenetic origin and (4) the established linear weathering relationship during the Holocene and into the Late Glacial (Matthews and Owen 2010; Matthews and Wilson 2015; Winkler and Lambiel 2018)....
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References
713 citations
"Age constraints of rock glaciers in..." refers background in this paper
..., 2013) reflects hemispheric climate patterns (Wanner et al., 2011)....
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...In many northern hemispheric regions, rock glacier initiation following the mid-Holocene Thermal Optimum and even as late as during the ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA) (Janke et al., 2013) reflects hemispheric climate patterns (Wanner et al., 2011)....
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427 citations
"Age constraints of rock glaciers in..." refers background in this paper
...Their genesis has been largely discussed and two main modes of rock glacier formation have been proposed (Barsch, 1988, 1996; Clark et al., 1998; Haeberli et al., 2006; Humlum, 1988; Whalley and Martin, 1992): (1) periglacial rock glaciers resulting from the creep of ice-rich sediments in…...
[...]
...Their genesis has been largely discussed and two main modes of rock glacier formation have been proposed (Barsch, 1988, 1996; Clark et al., 1998; Haeberli et al., 2006; Humlum, 1988; Whalley and Martin, 1992): (1) periglacial rock glaciers resulting from the creep of ice-rich sediments in permafrost conditions and (2) glacigenic rock glaciers deriving from the burial of small glaciers, mainly located in continental areas....
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372 citations
"Age constraints of rock glaciers in..." refers background in this paper
...Irishman Stream is located east of the 2000 mm isohyet (Sattler, 2016; Tait et al., 2006)....
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315 citations
308 citations
"Age constraints of rock glaciers in..." refers background in this paper
...The timing of major Holocene glacier advances during the late-Holocene pre-dating the ‘LIA’ (Schaefer et al., 2009; Solomina et al., 2015; Winkler, 2014) coincides with increasing intensity of westerly airflow over New Zealand (Turney et al., 2017) and could give evidence that in addition to air…...
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...The two uppermost moraines that likely correlate to similar features in Irishman Stream valley head have not been investigated and could represent the local ‘LIA’ or late-Holocene ‘LIA’-type events as their morphology appears quite ‘fresh’....
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...The timing of major Holocene glacier advances during the late-Holocene pre-dating the ‘LIA’ (Schaefer et al., 2009; Solomina et al., 2015; Winkler, 2014) coincides with increasing intensity of westerly airflow over New Zealand (Turney et al., 2017) and could give evidence that in addition to air temperatures, also atmospheric circulation patterns and precipitation need to be considered as important drivers of glacier fluctuations in the Southern Alps....
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...In many northern hemispheric regions, rock glacier initiation following the mid-Holocene Thermal Optimum and even as late as during the ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA) (Janke et al., 2013) reflects hemispheric climate patterns (Wanner et al., 2011)....
[...]
...These R-values are similar to those of lateHolocene/‘LIA’ moraines in glacier forelands in Aoraki/Mt Cook (Winkler and Corbett, 2014) especially if a slightly different lithology (occurrence of harder semi-schist together with typical ‘greywacke’) is considered....
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Frequently Asked Questions (14)
Q2. What have the authors stated for future works in "Age constraints of rock glaciers in the southern alps/new zealand – exploring their palaeoclimatic potential" ?
Future work exploring the palaeoclimatic potential of rock glacier in the Southern Alps to establish consolidated regional patterns seems, therefore, of high priority.
Q3. What is the important outcome of the Schmidthammer sampling?
the most important outcome of Schmidthammer sampling along the longitudinal profiles is a remarkable, consistent trend of increasing R-values means from the lowermost to the uppermost surface ridges on both rock glaciers.
Q4. What is the important driver of glacier variability in the Southern Alps?
If air temperatures are the most important drivers of glacier variability in the Southern Alps as claimed by Anderson and Mackintosh (2006) or Mackintosh et al. (2017), one would expect moraine sequences representing shortterm fluctuations during a constant decrease of glacier expansions and activity from the old early Holocene towards the ‘LIA’.
Q5. What is the average annual precipitation for the main divide of the southern Alps?
The high annual precipitation likely exceeds 10,000 mm on western slopes and, thanks to an ‘overspill’ effect, is also typical for the Main Divide of the Southern Alps itself and areas immediately to its east (Chater and Sturman, 1998; Griffiths and McSaveney, 1983; Henderson and Thompson, 1999).
Q6. What is the main argument for the retracted early-Holocene glaciers?
retracted early-Holocene glaciers could provide a palaeoclimatic signal for climatic conditions too dry for glaciers, thus questioning the postulated strong dependency on temperature conditions only.
Q7. What are the main methods used to date rock glaciers?
Dating methods applied (see Haeberli et al. (2003) for a review) involve relative-age dating methods such as, for example, the Schmidt-hammer (Kellerer-Pirklbauer et al., 2008; Scapozza et al., 2014) or weathering-rind thickness (Frauenfelder et al., 2005); numerical age-dating methods (radiocarbon dating: Haeberli et al., 1999; terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide dating (TCND): Böhlert et al., 2011a; Cossart et al., 2010a; optical stimulated luminescence: Fuchs et al., 2013); or age estimations based on current velocity fields measured with aerial photogrammetry (Frauenfelder et al., 2005).
Q8. What is the important factor in the regional glacier history?
If confirmed at other sites across the Southern Alps, rock glacier formation during the first part of the early Holocene also bears potential implications for the regional glacier history.
Q9. How can SHD be used to date rock glaciers in the Southern Alps?
Their study shows that SHD using an electronic Schmidt-hammer (SilverSchmidt) can successfully be applied for the dating of rock glaciers in the Southern Alps of New Zealand and is efficient with obtaining large sets of raw data.
Q10. What are the main characteristics of rock glaciers?
Their development and evolution is highly sensitive to climatic parameters (Brazier et al., 1998; Humlum, 1998; Kääb et al., 2007); rock glaciers constitute thus an important potential as archive for the regional Late Glacial and Holocene palaeoclimatology.
Q11. Why did they avoid furrows on the rock glacier surface?
To avoid potential influence of micro-climatic and micro-weathering differences, furrows on the rock glacier surface between those ridges were avoided (except for one test site).
Q12. What is the primary aim of this study?
The primary aim of their study is to test whether SHD can successfully be applied on rock glaciers in the Southern Alps and to compare the results obtained with those of similar studies on rock glaciers elsewhere.
Q13. Why is the model of a regional oscillating glacier retreat not supported?
But the model of a regional oscillating glacier retreat from Late Glacial until c. 6500 years ago (Putnam et al., 2012) cannot be supported on the basis of their results of high SHD age estimates of the lowermost rock glacier ridges and because of the excluding nature of rock glaciers and major glacier activity.
Q14. What is the significance of the SHD calibration curve?
It confirms the importance of their consistent sampling design to investigate surface ridges only and, furthermore, improves the reliability of the SHD calibration curve because the sampled fixed points/