ROCKY MOUNTAIN AND CONTINENTAL PLEISTOCENE DEPOSITS IN THE WATERTON REGION, ALBERTA, CANADA
Continental drift of probable Cary age overlies Early Wisconsin and Late Wisconsin mountain drift in the Rocky Mountain piedmont of the Waterton region, Alberta, Canada. On the basis of geomorphic relations and soil profiles the Early Wisconsin moraines are correlated with the Iowan and Tazewell, and the Late Wisconsin moraines with the Cary. An older, deeply weathered drift (Kennedy drift) on remnants of the high-level Flaxville erosion surface is correlated with the Kansan. There are marked differences in the profiles of weathering developed on drifts correlated with the Kansan, Iowan-Tazewell, and Cary. A buried soil, named the Drywood soil, which occurs on Early Wisconsin mountain drift below the continental drift, is tentatively correlated with the Brady soil of the Middle West. A series of proglacial lakes, formed as the continental ice withdrew down drainage, are reconstructed on the basis of shoreline features and outlet channels. Periglacial features are represented by natural mounds and involuted zones. Postglacial deposits include: (1) colluvium and a volcanic ash layer assigned to the Xerothermic period, and (2) cirque moraine, gravel fans and valley gravels, and a buried peat bed assigned to the Little Ice Age. The peat bed has a radiocarbon age of 3261 ± 250–3327 ± 320 years. In general the Pleistocene record suggests that glacial maxima in the mountains were essentially synchronous with the Kansan, Iowan-Tazewell, and Cary maxima of the Keewatin ice sheet in the western part of the continental interior.