Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Northern Research Supplement

The specific objectives of this project are a) to test the luminescence dating method on Middle to Late Pleistocene loess from Yukon and b) to contribute to the science of Climate Change in the Arctic. Yukon is part of Eastern Beringia, home of one the most extensive and comprehensive loess-tephra lithostratigraphic assemblage of the world. Loess is perfectly suited for luminescence dating, and as such, the Yukon river sections and mining exposure constitute a perfect laboratory to test the feldspar DRC method, a new dating technique developed in Montréal. The areas that will be visited in the course of this research program are: Dawson City and Klondike Placer Mining District and the Old Crow area, including the Flats and the Ch'ijee's Bluff, along the Porcupine River. This contribution is to be integrated inside a common research strategy of understanding climate changes and the mechanism of its impact in Western and Northern Yukon. This project will be carried out in collaboration with the Vuntut Gwitch'in Tribal Council. This research program should contribute to the investigation of this very critical issue of the stability of permafrost at the end of the Last Interglacial. There are a large number of buried thermokarstic features that are presumably related to the intense melting at the end of the regional Koy-Yukon warm event (125 000 years ago), an analogue for the modeling of the apprehended increased warming in the Arctic. This activity will strengthen the Canadian research presence in the Arctic, in full agreement with the recently announced Canadian scientific policies. The IPCC (2007) assessment report have highlighted the climate emergency in the Arctic, as enhanced feedback seems to promote much higher temperature increases in the North, and hence dangers to the infrastructure and to the local communities.