Glacial Isostatic Adjustment Shapes Proglacial Lakes Over Glacial Cycles

Abstract

Proglacial lakes are freshwater bodies that form within topographic depressions at an ice sheet's terrestrial margin. These depressions can preexist, or they can be established (or enhanced) by the presence of the ice sheet through its ability to dam water directly and to generate isostatic depressions. Proglacial lakes formed at the margins of both the Laurentide and Fennoscandian ice sheets during the Quaternary (

Glacial Isostatic Adjustment Modulates Lateral Migration Rate and Morphology of the Red River (North Dakota, USA and Manitoba, Canada)

“…As the North American ice sheets retreated during the last deglaciation, the unloading of these ice sheets caused tens of meters of uplift and subsidence along the profile of the Red River (Figures 1a, 1b, and 2a). Proglacial lakes formed along the periphery of the receding ice sheets (Austermann et al., 2022), including Glacial Lake Agassiz (shaded gray; Figure 1b). The Red River began flowing northward through Glacial Lake Agassiz paleolacustrine sediment at ∼8.5 ka when the proglacial lake drained (Teller & Leverington, 2004).…”