Applying a remote sensing and GIS approach to reconstructing the last Newfoundland Ice Sheet, Canada.

Applying a remote sensing and GIS approach to reconstructing the last Newfoundland Ice Sheet, Canada. The Newfoundland Ice Sheet (NIS) was situated on the margins of the northwest Atlantic Ocean and the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) during the last glaciation. This location suggests the evolution of the NIS through the last glacial cycle was likely influenced by a number of external and internal drivers including configuration changes in the LIS, ice stream initiation and shutdown, changes in oceanic circulation and fluctuating sea levels and climate signals from the wider Amphi-North Atlantic. As such Newfoundland is a key location for investigating ice sheet response to a number of internal and external forcing mechanisms. An established technique for reconstructing former ice sheets is to use a remote sensing approach to map the glacial geomorphology. The spatial analysis of this record can be used to decipher the dynamics, extent, retreat patterns and configuration of former ice sheets throughout the ice sheet evolution. Here we present new mapping based on our interpretation of SPOT satellite imagery and Digital Elevation Models of Newfoundland as well as swath bathymetric imagery from several locations offshore. Our new database consisting of ~150,000 individually mapped subglacial bedforms that includes glacial lineations and ribbed moraines significantly increases the known landform record in this region. Here we report how this data is being used to reconstruct the former NIS using the glacial inversion approach and flowset analysis to separate discrete ice flow patterns into snapshots of ice sheet behaviour through time.