Numerical modeling of late Glacial Laurentide advance of ice across Hudson Strait: Insights into terrestrial and marine geology, mass balance, and calving flux
A time-dependent finite element model was used to reconstruct the advance of ice from a late Glacial dome on northern Quebec/Labrador across Hudson Strait to Meta Incognita Peninsula (Baffin Island) and subsequently to the 9.9–9.6 ka 14 C Gold Cove position on Hall Peninsula. Terrestrial geological and geophysical information from Quebec and Labrador was used to constrain initial and boundary conditions, and the model results are compared with terrestrial geological information from Baffin Island and considered in the context of the marine event DC-0 and the Younger Dryas cooling. We conclude that advance across Hudson Strait from Ungava Bay to Baffin Island is possible using realistic glacier physics under a variety of reasonable boundary conditions. Production of ice flux from a dome centered on northeastern Quebec and Labrador sufficient to deliver geologically inferred ice thickness at Gold Cove (Hall Peninsula) appears to require extensive penetration of sliding south from Ungava Bay. The discharge of ice into the ocean associated with advance and retreat across Hudson Strait does not peak at a time coincident with the start of the Younger Dryas and is less than minimum values proposed to influence North Atlantic thermohaline circulation; nevertheless, a significant fraction of freshwater input to the North Atlantic may have been provided abruptly and at a critical time by this event.