Paleogeography of Lake Agassiz and regional post-glacial uplift history of the Flin Flon region, central Manitoba and Saskatchewan

Detailed mapping and elevation measurements of glacial lake shorelines in the Flin Flon region has permitted the reconstruction of 6 well-defined levels of Lake Agassiz formed around 8.3 ka to 7.9 ka 14C BP. The Stonewall, The Pas, Gimli, Grand Rapids, Drunken Point and Ponton paleo-water planes have been tilted upward to the northeast in the Holocene, with gradients decreasing, from the highest to the lowest level, from about 0.34 m km-1 to 0.22 m km-1 in the study area. The Setting level, lower than the Ponton but less well defined, is also documented here for the first time. This mapping conclusively refutes the view, entrenched in the literature from the 1890's to the 1960's, that there has been negligible differential uplift in the region following final drainage of Lake Agassiz. The finding has major consequences regarding correlation of glacial lakes across the mid-continent, the post-glacial history of large lakes in the region, and for interpretation of earth rheology and its implications for ice sheet reconstruction.