Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T16:27:53.542Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Geomorphic processes influence human settlement on two islands in the Islands of Four Mountains, Alaska

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2018

Lyman Persico ,
Henry Lanman ,
Lydia Loopesko ,
Kale Bruner  and
Kirsten Nicolaysen
Lyman Persico*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Ave., Walla Walla, Washington 99362, USA
Henry Lanman
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Ave., Walla Walla, Washington 99362, USA
Lydia Loopesko
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Ave., Walla Walla, Washington 99362, USA
Kale Bruner
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, USA
Kirsten Nicolaysen
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Ave., Walla Walla, Washington 99362, USA
*
*Corresponding author at: Department of Geology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Ave., Walla Walla, Washington 99362, USA. E-mail address: [email protected] (L. Persico).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Islands of Four Mountains island group of the Aleutian island arc is remote and difficult to access. Consequently, little fieldwork has focused on geomorphic processes and their relationship to island morphology, climatic change, and human settlement. We investigated glacial, fluvial, and slope processes on the morphologically different Carlisle, Cleveland, and Tana volcanoes. The islands were extensively glaciated at the last glacial maximum (LGM), and there is evidence for a Neoglacial advance. On the highly dissected Tana volcano, a large basin is likely the result of a pre-LGM sector collapse and subsequent glacial erosion into weak hydrothermally altered rock. Valley and moraine morphology is also influenced by hydrothermal alteration. On both Tana and Carlisle, there are sediment fans composed dominantly of thick debris flow deposits mantled by ~3 m of layered tephras, fine-grained alluvium, and anthropogenic deposits. Debris flow deposition was favored during the unstable paraglacial landscape of the early Holocene–latest Pleistocene. The earliest direct archaeological evidence for settlement is 3.8 cal ka BP, but soil geochemical evidence suggests that the islands were inhabited by 7.3 cal ka BP. This discrepancy in the archaeological record may be explained by geomorphic processes including coastal erosion and unstable geomorphic surfaces.

Keywords

Chuginadak IslandCarlisle volcanoNeoglacialGlaciationParaglaciationHuman settlementAleutian prehistoryAleutian Islands
Type
Aleutians Special Issue
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 91 , Issue 3 , May 2019 , pp. 953 - 971
Copyright
Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

A, G., Wahr, J., Zhong, S., 2013. Computations of the viscoelastic response of a 3-D compressible Earth to surface loading: an application to glacial isostatic adjustment in Antarctica and Canada. Geophysical Journal International 192, 557–572.Google Scholar
Badding, M.E., Briner, J.P., Kaufman, D.S., 2013. 10Be ages of late Pleistocene deglaciation and neoglaciation in the north-central Brooks Range, Arctic Alaska. Journal of Quaternary Science 28, 95–102.Google Scholar
Ballantyne, C.K., 1992. A general model of paraglacial landscape response. Holocene 12, 371–386.Google Scholar
Barclay, D.J., Wiles, G.C., Calkin, P.E., 2009. Holocene glacier fluctuations in Alaska. Quaternary Science Reviews 28, 2034–2048.Google Scholar
Beaudoin, A.B., King, R.H., 1994. Holocene palaeoenvironmental record preserved in a paraglacial alluvial fan, Sunwapta Pass, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada. Catena [Giessen] 22, 227–248.Google Scholar
Black, R.F., 1974. Geology and ancient Aleuts, Amchitka and Umnak Islands, Aleutians. Arctic Anthropology 11, 126–140.Google Scholar
Black, R.F., 1976. Late-Quaternary glacial events, Aleutian Islands, Alaska. In: Easterbrook, D.J., Šibrava, V. (Eds.), Quaternary Glaciation in the Northern Hemisphere. International Geological Correlation Programme, Project 73/1/24, Report 3. IUGS-UNESCO, Prague, pp. 285–301.Google Scholar
Burnham, C.W., 1962. Facies and types of hydrothermal alteration. Economic Geology and the Bulletin of the Society of Economic Geologists 57, 768–784.Google Scholar
Byers, F.M., 1959. Geology of Umnak and Bogoslof Islands, Aleutian Islands. Geological Survey Bulletin 1028-L. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Caissie, B.E., Brigham-Grette, J., Lawrence, K.T., Herbert, T.D., Cook, M.S., 2010. Last glacial maximum to Holocene sea surface conditions at Umnak Plateau, Bering Sea, as inferred from diatom, alkenone, and stable isotope records. Paleoceanography 25, PA1206.Google Scholar
Calkin, P.E., Wiles, G.C., Barclay, D.J., 2001. Holocene coastal glaciation of Alaska. Quaternary Science Reviews 20, 449–461.Google Scholar
Church, M., Ryder, J.M., 1972. Paraglacial sedimentation: a consideration of fluvial processes conditioned by glaciation. Geological Society of America Bulletin 83, 3059–3072.Google Scholar
Conway, C.E., Townsend, D.B., Leonard, G.S., Wilson, C.J.N., Calvert, A.T., Gamble, J.A., 2015. Lava-ice interaction on a large composite volcano: a case study from Ruapehu, New Zealand. Bulletin of Volcanology 77, 21.Google Scholar
Corbett, D.G., 1991. Aleut Settlement Patterns in the Western Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks.Google Scholar
Cossart, E., Mercier, D., Decaulne, A., Feuillet, T., 2013. An overview of the consequences of paraglacial landsliding on deglaciated mountain slopes: typology, timing and contribution to cascading fluxes. Quaternaire 24, 13–24.Google Scholar
Cossart, E., Mercier, D., Decaulne, A., Feuillet, T., Jonsson, H.P., Sæmundsson, T., 2014. Impacts of post-glacial rebound on landslide spatial distribution at regional scale in northern Iceland (Skagafjördur). Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 39, 336–350.Google Scholar
Crockford, S.J., 2012. Archaeozoology of Adak Island: 6000 years of subsistence history in the Central Aleutians. In: West, D.L., Hatfield, V., Wilmerding, E., Lefevre, C., Gualtieri, L. (Eds.), The People Before: The Geology, Paleoecology and Archaeology of Adak Island, Alaska. Archaeopress, Oxford, UK.Google Scholar
Crockford, S.J., Frederick, S.G., 2007. Sea ice expansion in the Bering Sea during the Neoglacial: evidence from archaeozoology. Holocene 17, 699–706.Google Scholar
Davis, B.L., 2001. Sea mammal hunting and the Neoglacial. In: Dumond, D.E. (Ed.), Archaeology in the Aleut Zone of Alaska: Some Recent Research. University of Oregon Anthropological Papers 58. University of Oregon, Department of Anthropology, Eugene, pp. 71–104.Google Scholar
Davis, R.S., Knecht, R.A., 2010. Continuity and change in the eastern Aleutian archaeological sequence. Human Biology 82, 507–524.Google Scholar
Dean, K.G., Dehn, J., Papp, K.R., Smith, S., Izbekov, P., Peterson, R., Kearney, C., Steffke, A., 2004. Integrated satellite observations of the 2001 eruption of Mt. Cleveland, Alaska. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 135, 51–73.Google Scholar
De Angelis, S., Fee, D., Haney, M., Schneider, D., 2012. Detecting hidden volcanic explosions from Mt. Cleveland Volcano, Alaska with infrasound and ground-coupled airwaves. Geophysical Research Letters 39, L21312.Google Scholar
Derbyshire, E., Owen, L.A., 1997. Quaternary glacial history of the Karakoram Mountains and northwest Himalayas: a review. Quaternary International 38–39, 85–102.Google Scholar
Detterman, R.L., 1986. Glaciation of the Alaska Peninsula. In: Hamilton, T.D., Reed, K.M., Thorson, R.M. (Eds.), Glaciation in Alaska: The Geologic Record. Alaska Geological Society, Anchorage, AK, pp. 151–170.Google Scholar
Evans, W.C., Bergfeld, D., Neal, C.A., McGimsey, R.G., Werner, C.A., Waythomas, C.F., Lewicki, J.L., et al., 2015. Aleutian Arc Geothermal Fluids: Chemical Analyses of Waters and Gases Sampled in Association with the Alaska Volcano Observatory. U.S. Geological Survey Data Release (accessed December 1, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.5066/F78G8HR1.Google Scholar
Eyles, N., Kocsis, S., 1988. Sedimentology and clast fabric of subaerial debris flow facies in a glacially influences alluvial fan. Sedimentary Geology 65, 196–197.Google Scholar
Friele, P.A., Clague, J.J., 2009. Paraglacial geomorphology of Quaternary volcanic landscapes in the southern Coast Mountains, British Columbia. Geological Society Special Publications 320, 219–233.Google Scholar
Frohlich, B., 2002. Aleutian Settlement Distribution on Adak, Kagalaska, Buldir, and Attu Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska. In: Frohlich, B., Harper, A.B., Gilberg, R. (Eds.), To the Aleutians and Beyond: The Anthropology of William S. Laughlin. Department of Ethnography, The National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, pp. 63–88.Google Scholar
Gaillardet, J., Louvat, P., Lajeunesse, E., 2011. Rivers from volcanic island arcs: the subduction weathering factory. Applied Geochemistry 26, S350–S353.Google Scholar
Griswold, F.R., MacInnes, B.T., Higman, B., 2018. Tsunami-based evidence for large eastern Aleutian slip during the 1957 earthquake. Quaternary Research (in press). https://doi.org/10.1017/qua.2018.39.Google Scholar
Hanks, T.C., Bucknam, R.C., Lajoie, K.R., Wallace, R.E., 1984. Modification of wave-cut and faulting-controlled landforms. Journal of Geophysical Research 89, 5771–5790.Google Scholar
Hatfield, V., Bruner, K., West, D., Savinetsky, A., Krylovich, O., Khasanov, B., Vasyukov, D., et al., 2016. At the foot of the Smoking Mountains: the 2014 scientific investigations in the Islands of the Four Mountains. Arctic Anthropology 53, 141–159.Google Scholar
Heusser, C.J., 1973. Postglacial vegetation on Umnak Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 15, 277–285.Google Scholar
Heusser, C.J., 1990. Late Quaternary vegetation of the Aleutian Islands, southwestern Alaska. Canadian Journal of Botany 68, 1320–1326.Google Scholar
Hildreth, E.W., Fierstein, J., Lanphere, M.A., Siems, D.F., 2001. Snowy Mountain: a pair of small andesite-dacite stratovolcanoes in Katmai National Park. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1633, 13–34.Google Scholar
Hu, F.S., Brubaker, L.B., Anderson, P.M., 1995. Postglacial vegetation and climate change in the northern Bristol Bay region, southwestern Alaska. Quaternary Research 43, 382–392.Google Scholar
Jijun, L., Derbyshire, E., Shuying, X., 1984. Glacial and paraglacial sediments of the Hunza Valley, north-west Karakoram, Pakistan: a preliminary analysis. In: Millar, K. (Ed.), International Karakoram Project. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 496–535.Google Scholar
Jordan, J.W., 2001. Late Quaternary sea-level change in southern Beringia: post-glacial emergence of the western Alaska Peninsula. Quaternary Science Reviews 20, 509–532.Google Scholar
Katsuki, K., Khim, B.K., Itaki, T., Harada, N., Sakai, H., Ikeda, T., Takahashi, K., Okazaki, Y., Asahi, H., 2009. Land-sea linkage of Holocene paleoclimate on the Southern Bering Continental Shelf. Holocene 19, 747–756.Google Scholar
Kaufman, D.S., Manley, W.F., 2004. Pleistocene maximum and Late Wisconsin glacier extents across Alaska, U.S.A. In: Ehlers, J., Gibbard, P.L. (Eds.), Quaternary Glaciations - Extent and Chronology. Part II: North America. Developments in Quaternary Sciences, Vol. 2, Part B. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 9–27.Google Scholar
Kaufman, D.S., Young, N.E., Briner, J.P., Manley, W.F., 2011. Alaska palaeo-glacier atlas (version 2). In: Ehlers, J., Gibbard, P.L., Hughes, P.D. (Eds.), Quaternary Glaciations – Extent and Chronology: A Closer Look. Developments in Quaternary Science, Vol. 15. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 427–445.Google Scholar
Kostaschuck, R.A., MacDonald, G.M., Jackson, L.E., 1987. Rocky Mountain alluvial fans. Canadian Geography 31, 366–368.Google Scholar
Kostaschuck, R.A., MacDonald, G.M., Putnam, P.E., 1986. Depositional process and alluvial fan-drainage basin morphometric relationships near Banff, Alberta, Canada. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 11, 471–484.Google Scholar
Kuzmicheva, E.A., Smyshlyaeva, O.I., Vasyukov, D.D., Khasanov, B.F., Krylovich, O.A., Okuno, M., West, D.L., Hatfield, V., Savinetsky, A.B., (in press). 7,300 Years of environmental history from pollen and N isotopic compositions from a bog on Carlisle Island, Islands of Four Mountains, Eastern Aleutians, AK. Quaternary Research.Google Scholar
Lambeck, K., Rouby, H., Purcell, A., Sun, Y.Y., Sambridge, M., 2014. Sea level and global ice volumes from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111, 15296–15303.Google Scholar
Laughlin, W.S., 1975. Aleuts: ecosystem, Holocene historys, and Siberian origin. Science 189, 507–515.Google Scholar
Lozhkin, A.V., Anderson, P., Eisner, W.R., Solomatkina, T.B., 2011. Late glacial and Holocene landscapes of central Beringia. Quaternary Research 76, 383–392.Google Scholar
Mandel, R., 1995. Geomorphic controls of the Archaic record in the Central Plains of the United States. In: Bettis, E.A., III (Ed.), Archaeological Geology of the Archaic Period in the United States. Geological Society of America, Boulder, CO, p. 297.Google Scholar
Mann, D.H., Crowell, A.L., Hamilton, T.D., Finney, B.P., 1998. Holocene geologic and climatic history around the Gulf of Alaska. Arctic Anthropology 35, 112–131.Google Scholar
Mason, O.K., Jordan, J.W., 2002. Minimal late Holocene sea level rise in the Chukchi Sea: arctic insensitivity to global change. Global and Planetary Changes 32, 13–23.Google Scholar
McArthur, J.L., 1987. The characteristics, classification and origin of Late Pleistocene fan deposits in the Cass Basin, Canterbury, New Zealand. Sedimentology 34, 459–471.Google Scholar
Miller, T.P., McGimsey, R.G., Richter, D.H., Riehle, J.R., Nye, C.J., Yount, M.E., Dumoulin, J.A., 1998. Catalog of the Historically Active Volcanoes of Alaska. U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 98-582. U.S. Geological Survey, Anchorage, AK.Google Scholar
Misarti, N., Finney, B.P., Jordan, J.W., Maschner, H.D.G., Addison, J.A., Shapley, M.D., Krumhardt, A., Beget, J.E., 2012. Early retreat of the Alaska Peninsula Glacier Complex and the implications for coastal migrations of First Americans. Quaternary Science Reviews 48, 1–6.Google Scholar
Molnia, B.F., 1986. Glacial history of the northeastern Gulf of Alaska—a synthesis. In: Hamilton, T.D., Reed, K.M., Thorson, R.M. (Eds.), Glaciation in Alaska: The Geologic Record. Alaska Geological Society, Anchorage, AK, pp.Google Scholar
Molnia, B.F., 2008. Glaciers of North America—glaciers of Alaska. In: Williams, R.S.J., Ferrigno, J.G. (Eds.), Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1386-K. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Neal, C.A., Izbekov, P., Nicolaysen, K.P., 2015. Preliminary analysis of a postglacial tephra section at Mount Cleveland Volcano, Chuginadak Island, Aleutian Arc. Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs 47, 11.Google Scholar
Okuno, M., Izbekov, P., Nicolaysen, K., Sato, E., Nakamura, T., Savinetsky, A., Vasyukov, D., et al., 2017. AMS radiocarbon dates on peat section related with tephra and archaeological sites in Carlisle Island, the Islands of Four Mountains, Alaska. Radiocarbon 59, 1771–1778.Google Scholar
O’Leary, M., 1993a. Report of Investigation for the Aleut Corporation BLM AA-12203. Bureau of Indian Affairs, Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act Office, Anchorage, AK.Google Scholar
O’Leary, M., 1993b. Report of Investigation for the Aleut Corporation BLM AA-12206. Bureau of Indian Affairs, Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act Office, Anchorage, AK.Google Scholar
O’Leary, M., 2001. Volcanic ash stratigraphy for Adak Island, Central Aleutian Archipelago. In: Dumon, E. (Ed.), Archaeology in the Aleut Zone of Alaska: Some Recent Research. University of Oregon Anthropological Papers 58. University of Oregon, Department of Anthropology, Eugene, pp. 215–233.Google Scholar
Pekar, K., Nicolaysen, K.P., Bridges, D.L., Dehn, J., 2005. Prehistoric lahar and tephra sequences on Mt. Cleveland, Islands of Four Mountains, eastern Aleutian Islands. Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union 86, Fall Meeting Supplement, abstract V33B-0681.Google Scholar
Peltier, W.R., 2004. Global glacial isostasy and the surface of the ice-age Earth: the ICE-5G(VM2) model and GRACE. Annual Reviews of Earth and Planetary Sciences 32, 111–149.Google Scholar
Putkonen, J., Swanson, T., 2003. Accuracy of cosmogenic ages for moraines. Quaternary Research 59, 255–261.Google Scholar
Rapp, G., Hill, C., 2006. Geoarchaeology. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.Google Scholar
Reid, M.E., Sisson, T.W., Brien, D.L., 2001. Volcano collapse promoted by hydrothermal alteration and edifice shape, Mount Rainier, Washington. Geology 29, 779–782.Google Scholar
Robb, L., 2005. Introduction to Ore-Forming Processes. Blackwell, Malden, MA.Google Scholar
Ryder, J.M., 1971. The stratigraphy and morphology of paraglacial alluvial fans in south-central British Columbia. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 8, 279–298.Google Scholar
Savinetsky, A.B., West, D.L., Antipushina, Z.A., Khassanov, B.F., Kiseleva, N.K., Krylovich, O.A., Pereladov, A.M., 2012. The reconstruction of ecosystems history of Adak Island (Aleutian Islands) during the Holocene. In: West, D.L., Hatfield, V., Wilmerding, E., Lefevre, C., Gualtieri, L. (Eds.), The People Before: The Geology, Paleoecology and Archaeology of Adak Island, Alaska. Archaeopress, Oxford, UK.Google Scholar
Thorson, R.M., Hamilton, T.D., 1986. Glacial geology of the Aleutian Islands based on the contributions of Robert F. Black. In: Hamilton, T.D., Reed, K.M., Thorson, R.M. (Eds.), Glaciation in Alaska: The Geologic Record. Alaska Geological Society, Anchorage, AK, pp. 171–191.Google Scholar
Veniaminov, Ivan (1984). Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District. Translated by Lydia T. Black and R.H. Geoghegan. Edited by Richard A. Pierce. Limestone Press, Kingston, ON.Google Scholar
Waythomas, C.F., 2015. Geomorphic consequences of volcanic eruptions in Alaska: a review. Geomorphology 246, 123–145.Google Scholar
Werner, C., Kern, C., Coppola, D., Lyons, J.J., Kelly, P.J., Wallace, K.L., Schneider, D.J., Wessels, R.L., 2017. Magmatic degassing, lava dome extrusion, and explosions from Mount Cleveland Volcano, Alaska, 2011–2015: insight into the continuous nature of volcanic activity over multi-year timescales. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 337, 98–110.Google Scholar
West, D., Crawford, M., Savinetsky, A., 2007. Genetics, prehistory and the colonisation of the Aleutian Islands. Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 98, 47–57.Google Scholar
Winslow, M.A., 1991. Modeling paleoshorelines in geologically active regions: applications to the Shumnagin Islands, southwest Alaska. In: Johnson, L., Stright, M. (Eds.), Paleoshorelines and Prehistory: An Investigation of Method. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, pp. 151–169.Google Scholar
Winslow, M.A., Johnson, T.T., 1989. Prehistoric human settlement patterns in a tectonically unstable environment: outer Shumagain Islands, southwestern Alaska. Geoarchaeology 4, 297–318.Google Scholar
Zimmermann, M., Prescott, M.M., Rooper, C.N., 2013. Smooth Sheet Bathymetry of the Aleutian Islands. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Technical Memorandum NMFS-AFSC-250. U.S. Department of Commerce, NOAA, National Marine Fisheries Service, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Seattle, WA.Google Scholar