Evolution of the subglacial hydrologic system beneath the rapidly decaying Cordilleran Ice Sheet caused by ice-dammed lake drainage: implications for meltwater-induced ice acceleration

A positive correlation between ice-dammed lake drainage and ice acceleration at Antarctic Ice Sheets (AIS) and land-terminating sections of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) has been implicated in enhanced ice sheet decay. However, the paucity of direct measurements at the ice sheet bed restricts our understanding of subglacial drainage system evolution in response to transient water inputs. We present evidence that two meltwater corridors on the former bed of the thin (∼600 m at Last Glacial Maximum over the interior Plateaus of British Columbia) and rapidly decaying Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS) were generated subglacially in response to the drainage of an ice-dammed lake and operated as canals (tunnel channels). Geomorphological, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) data reveal a simple event sequence that includes initial propagation of a broad (at least 2.5 km wide) floodwave (inefficient drainage) from an ice-dammed lake, over relatively short (3–24 km) zones at the corridor heads that collapsed into efficient canals (large (up to 0.25–2.5 km wide) channels incised down into the sediment bed and up into the ice) downglacier. Canal formation on the southern Fraser Plateau involved synchronous (along the full canal length) system development, including elements of headward erosion and plunge pool formation. Our data suggest that ice-dammed lake drainage beneath a rapidly decaying thin ice mass that has an efficient antecedent drainage network is not conducive to large-scale ice acceleration. These data may aid better assessment of the role of ice-dammed lake drainage on the dynamics of former, as well as contemporary, ice sheets.

► We reconstruct meltwater corridor formation during ice-dammed lake drainage.
► Geomorphological and geophysical data reveal a simple event sequence.
► Initial drainage is through a broad and slowly propagating floodwave.
► Intersection of this with an efficient antecedent ice tunnel rapidly forms a canal.
► We explore the implications for acceleration of a thin ice sheet.