Dating Disappearing Ice With Cosmogenic Nuclides

Cosmogenic nuclides are remarkably well suited to dating glacial landforms. Exposure dating of boulders on moraines and of glacially sculpted bedrock allows the determination of the ages of former ice margins, from which past glaciations can be temporally constrained. Where moraines are lacking or are poorly preserved, outwash is dated with depth-profile dating. Two-nuclide methods can be used to determine the ages of buried till. Multinuclide measurements of bedrock ages also provide insights into periods of non-erosive ice coverage and can be used to identify regions with selective linear erosion. Of particular interest is the use of cosmogenic nuclides to assess rates of glacier retreat and glacial erosion.