Paleoenvironmental Change
Quaternary environmental record of basin and valley fills
Valleys and basins are sedimentary sinks: they contain thick and rich records of Quaternary environmental change. In turn, the character of the fill impacts the rate and style of postglacial landscape adjustment. Because most of the Canadian landscape is conditioned by its recent glacial legacy, its current state of disequilibrium results in an environment extremely sensitive to climate change. A selection of our more recent work in this area has focused on the following topics:
1) Re-examination of a sedimentary sequence (Bowmanville bluffs) in the Lake Ontario basin spanning MIS 5e-2 [Brennand et al. 2007]
2) Re-examination of a MIS 4 Cordilleran stratotype: the Okanagan Centre section, southern British Columbia, Canada. [Lesemann et al. 2013; Lesemann et al. 2007]
3) Optical age constraints on Cordilleran Ice Sheet decay over the southern Fraser Plateau, BC [Perkins et al. 2013]
4) The paleoenvironmental record contained in Cordilleran ice-dammed lake sediments [Perkins et al. 2013; Peters 2012; Lesemann 2012; Lesemann and Brennand 2007; Johnsen and Brennand 2006; Johnsen and Brennand 2004; Johnsen 2004]
