A glacial chronology for the Fish Creek drainage of Boulder Mountain, Utah, USA

Abstract

Boulder Mountain, located in South Central Utah, is one of several mountain ranges on the Colorado Plateau that was glaciated during the late Pleistocene. Using 3He exposure-age dating (corrected for non-cosmogenic 3He with shielded samples), we determined 3He exposure-ages for boulders from the most well-preserved moraines in the Fish Creek drainage of Boulder Mountain. 3He exposure-ages indicate a last glacial maximum (LGM) advance ∼23,100 ± 1300 to 20,000 ± 1400 yr ago and a later and smaller advance ∼16,800 ± 500 to 15,200 ± 500 yr ago. This chronology is very similar to other cosmogenic glacial chronologies from the Western U.S. and suggests that the timing of glacial advance and retreat on the Colorado Plateau was generally in phase with the rest of the Western U.S. during the late Pleistocene.