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Abstract Glacial isostatic adjustment produces crustal deformation capable of altering the slope of the landscape and diverting surface water drainage, thereby modulating the hydraulic conditions that govern river evolution. These effects can be especially important near the margins of ice sheets. In Maine, USA, post-glacial changes in sedimentation within major river systems have been interpreted as the result of regional tilting and drainage rerouting due to glacial isostatic adjustment. In this study, we model isostatic adjustment driven by retreat of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, quantify the associated tilting and drainage rerouting, and explore how these changes impacted sediment transport in Maine's rivers. Through an analysis of changes to river slope and drainage area produced by glacial isostatic adjustment, we show that ice sheet retreat altered the median sediment grain size that rivers could entrain. We also find support for previous estimates of the timing and direction of drainage reversal at Moosehead Lake, Maine's largest lake. Our results suggest that the history of sedimentation in Maine's rivers reflects time-dependent effects of glacial isostatic adjustment that are superimposed on any changes in runoff associated with deglaciation. Further, our case study demonstrates that isostatic adjustment affects alluvial channel evolution and sediment delivery to the coastline for several millennia after an ice sheet retreats. 

Stories about the foundation of US geology as a discipline are prominent in the culture of field geology today. This article traces the threads of such “origin stories” through field geology practices and undergraduate training. The repetition of these origin stories obfuscates the colonial and race-fueled motives that underpin the actions of the US geologist characters featured in these stories. Increasingly, the field is recognized as a site of sexual and racial harassment and abuse. By making visible the racialized subplots in the history of US geology, which include entrenchment in racial science and land dispossession, I posit that the curated origin stories repeated today perpetuate processes of gendered and race-based exclusion and subjugation in field geology. 

Understanding sea level during the peak of the Last Interglacial (125,000 yrs ago) is important for assessing future ice-sheet dynamics in response to climate change. The coasts and continental shelves of northeastern Australia (Queensland) preserve an extensive Last Interglacial record in the facies of coastal strandplains onland and fossil reefs offshore. However, there is a discrepancy, amounting to tens of meters, in the elevation of sea-level indicators between offshore and onshore sites. Here, we assess the influence of geophysical processes that may have changed the elevation of these sea-level indicators. We modeled sea-level change due to dynamic topography, glacial isostatic adjustment, and isostatic adjustment due to coral reef loading. We find that these processes caused relative sea-level changes on the order of, respectively, 10 m, 5 m, and 0.3 m. Of these geophysical processes, the dynamic topography predictions most closely match the tilting observed between onshore and offshore sea-level markers. 

The cyclic growth and decay of continental ice sheets can be reconstructed from the history of global sea level. Sea level is relatively well constrained for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 26,500 to 19,000 y ago, 26.5 to 19 ka) and the ensuing deglaciation. However, sea-level estimates for the period of ice-sheet growth before the LGM vary by > 60 m, an uncertainty comparable to the sea-level equivalent of the contemporary Antarctic Ice Sheet. Here, we constrain sea level prior to the LGM by reconstructing the flooding history of the shallow Bering Strait since 46 ka. Using a geochemical proxy of Pacific nutrient input to the Arctic Ocean, we find that the Bering Strait was flooded from the beginning of our records at 46 ka until 35.7 - 2.4 + 3.3 ka. To match this flooding history, our sea-level model requires an ice history in which over 50% of the LGM’s global peak ice volume grew after 46 ka. This finding implies that global ice volume and climate were not linearly coupled during the last ice age, with implications for the controls on each. Moreover, our results shorten the time window between the opening of the Bering Land Bridge and the arrival of humans in the Americas. 

Most paleoclimate studies of Mainland Southeast Asia hydroclimate focus on the summer monsoon, with few studies investigating rainfall in other seasons. Here, we present a multiproxy stalagmite record (45,000 to 4,000 years) from central Vietnam, a region that receives most of its annual rainfall in autumn (September-November). We find evidence of a prolonged dry period spanning the last glacial maximum that is punctuated by an abrupt shift to wetter conditions during the deglaciation at ~14 ka. Paired with climate model simulations, we show that sea-level change drives autumn monsoon rainfall variability on glacial-orbital timescales. Consistent with the dry signal in the stalagmite record, climate model simulations reveal that lower glacial sea level exposes land in the Gulf of Tonkin and along the South China Shelf, reducing convection and moisture delivery to central Vietnam. When sea level rises and these landmasses flood at ~14 ka, moisture delivery to central Vietnam increases, causing an abrupt shift from dry to wet conditions. On millennial timescales, we find signatures of well-known Heinrich Stadials (HS) (dry conditions) and Dansgaard–Oeschger Events (wet conditions). Model simulations show that during the dry HS, changes in sea surface temperature related to meltwater forcing cause the formation of an anomalous anticyclone in the Western Pacific, which advects dry air across central Vietnam, decreasing autumn rainfall. Notably, sea level modulates the magnitude of millennial-scale dry and wet phases by muting dry events and enhancing wet events during periods of low sea level, highlighting the importance of this mechanism to autumn monsoon variability. 

Significance The glacial Lake Missoula outburst floods are among the largest known floods on Earth. Dozens of these floods scoured the landscapes of eastern Washington during the last Ice Age, from 18 to 15.5 thousand years ago, forming what is known as the Channeled Scabland. We explored how changes in topography due to the solid Earth’s response to ice sheet loading and unloading influenced the history of megaflood routing over the Channeled Scabland. We found that deformation of Earth’s crust played an important role in directing the erosion of the Channeled Scabland.