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Abstract: Cosmogenic 10Be ages on boulders of 54–51 ka (n =4) on a penultimate Cordilleran ice sheet (CIS) drift confirm that Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 4 (early Wisconsin) glaciation was extensive in parts of Yukon Territory, the first confirmed evidence in the Canadian Cordillera. We name the glaciation inferred from the mapped and dated drift the Gladstone. These results are in apparent contrast to the MIS 6 (Illinoian) age of the penultimate Reid glaciation to the east in central Yukon but are equivalent to exposure ages on MIS 4 drift in Alaska. Contrasting penultimate ice extents in Yukon requires that different source areas of the northern CIS in Yukon responded differently to climatic forcing during glaciations. The variation in glacier extent for different source areas likely relates to variation in precipitation during glaciation, as the northern CIS was a precipitation-limited system. Causes for a variation in precipitation remain unclear but likely involve the style of precipitation delivery over the St. Elias Mountains possibly related to variations in the Aleutian low. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The Klondike gravel is a widespread glaciofluvial gravel marking the earliest and most extensive Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS) in NW North America. New terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide (TCN) burial ages indicate this gravel was emplaced 2.64+0.20/−0.18 Ma (1σ). Coupled with previously interpreted paleomagnetic stratigraphy, this numerical age constrains the timing of the earliest CIS to the late Gauss Chron and provides a minimum age for the Upper White Channel gravel, a significant placer gold source in the Yukon. This implies the first CIS glacial maximum pre-dates the maximum extent of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, indicating that during the initial stages of northern hemisphere glaciation, the most extensive glaciers were present in the relatively cold and high elevation northern Cordillera. Our results verify the CIS as a likely source of persistent coeval ice-rafted debris in the northern Pacific, and suggest that the first CIS formed as a response to the establishment of the northern Pacific halocline and emergence of the 41 ka obliquity cycle during the Plio-Pliocene transition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]