THE DEGLACIATION AND HOLOCENE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FORT MCMURRAY AREA, ALBERTA

New radiocarbon ages obtained during a recent coring expedition from the Fort McMurray area, Alberta provides insight into deglaciation and Holocene landscape development in the area. Three key sites with minimum ages of 9,820 ± 70 14C , 9,090 ±70 14C, and 8,975 14C ±60 B.P associated with moraines near Fort McMurray and with the Cree lake Moraine indicate deglaciation was later than originally supposed by Dyke et al., (1987) by approximately 1000 years. Our core collection also recorded subsequent events specifically in three geomorphological settings. First, there is evidence of channel paludification at five different sites. The age at the contacts between channel and lacustrine sediments, range from 10,020 ± 75 to 7,760 ± 66 14C B.P. The second group of coring sites have a lacustrine sequence recording changes in water levels that occur after 9,705 14C ± 75 B.P, with some of the ages coeval with peat bog formation observed elsewhere in the northern prairie-provinces. The third group of sites show evidence of eolian activity, with an unknown beginning but shut off after 7,445 ± 14C B.P.