Reconstructing Glacial Histories of the Sevier and Wasatch Plateaus of Central Utah to Study Regional Climate Forcing

Central Utah presents a unique opportunity to study regional patterns of climate change, due in large part to its unique glacial history. In particular, patterns of late Cenozoic glaciation throughout this mountainous region suggest a large degree of regional climate variability over a relatively small geographical area. Many researchers hypothesize that these regional variations may be due in part to Glacial Lake Bonneville, which covered much of Utah during the Pleistocene. The current study focuses on the Sevier and Wasatch Plateaus of Central Utah. Within the Wasatch Plateau, cirque glaciers, valley glaciers, and small ice fields carved the 3000m elevations into recognizable geomorphic features that have been well-documented. Slightly south of the Wasatch Plateau, the Sevier Plateau exhibits evidence of smaller, less-extensive cirque glaciers that have been poorly documented to date. These two plateaus present a unique opportunity to investigate the climate and geographic mechanisms that gave rise to differences in glacial advances within and between the two plateaus. In order to assess the influence of Glacial Lake Bonneville on the climate history of Central Utah, the glacial history of these plateaus are constrained using cosmogenic radionuclide dating and compared to the chronology of the paleolake. Very little numerical dating of glaciations have been reported for the Wasatch Plateau, and no absolute ages have been published for the Sevier Plateau. This study expands upon previous work by refining the glacial chronologies of these two areas. Reconstructions of glacial histories in combination with the lake-level history are used to quantify the regional climate sensitivity to changes in climatic forcing, and to place those regional changes in the context of the larger-scale hemispheric and global changes