Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta

John H England

Other_position

NSERC Northern Research Chair

Publications

• England, J. H., Atkinson, N., Dyke, A.S., Evans, D.J.A., and Zreda, M. 2004: Late Wisconsinan buildup and wastage of the Innuitian Ice Sheet across southern Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 41, 39-61.
• Atkinson, N., and England, J. H. 2004. Postglacial emergence of Amund and Ellef Ringnes islands, Nunavut: implications for the northwest sector of the Innuitian Ice Sheet. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 41, 271-283.
• Ó Cofaigh, C., Evans, D.J.A., and England.J.H., 2003. Ice-marginal terrestrial landsystems: sub-polar glacier margins of the Canadian and Greenland high arctic. In Glacial Landsystems, Editor DJA Evans. Arnold, London, 44-64.
• Dyke, A. S. and England, J. H. 2002. Canada’s most northly occurrence of postglacial Bowhead whales (Balaena mystectus): Holocene sea-ice conditions and polynya development. Arctic,

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Research area

Each summer, I head a diverse group of field projects involving graduate and undergraduate students in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. This research is concerned with the nature of environmental variability at high latitudes and focuses on a range of proxy records including: the chronology, style, and dynamics of past ice sheets, sea level changes in response to these former ice loads, and the nature of Holocene environmental change recorded by the entry and distribution of driftwood and whale bone on raised marine shorelines, and sedimentation in lake basins many of which have recently emerged from the sea. Publications pertaining to these themes are listed above.



I have conducted more than 25 field seasons throughout Arctic Canada, including Greenland. I have also conducted research in the Karakoram Mountains, Northern Pakistan, another tectonically-active, arid, glaciated mountain region which shares many similarities to Arctic environments.

Research interest

Currently, I am extending the past two decades of research in the alpine sector of the Queen Elizabeth Islands (predominantly Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere islands) into the lower terrain of the westernmost archipelago where the history of glaciation and sea level change is poorly documented. Virtually all of the alpine sector was inundated by the Innuitian Ice Sheet during the Late Wisconsinan, and we have recently mapped regional dispersal trains (one ~ 600 km in length) showing that the Innuitian Ice Sheet extended westward across the archipelago to the polar continental shelf. In the southwestern sector of these islands we are investigating the relationship between the Innuitian Ice Sheet, the northwest margin of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, and local, island-based ice caps that may have separated or extended from them. In addition to documenting the terrestrial record for late Quaternary and Holocene environmental change, we also plan to connect our research increasingly with studies being conducted on the depositional history of the Arctic Ocean Basin.

School

University of Colorado, 1974