The Cordillera of western Canada was repeatedly enveloped by a continental ice sheet, known as the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, during the Pleistocene and latest Pliocene (Flint, 1971; Clague, 1989; Jackson and Clague, 1991). At its maximum extent, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet and its satellite glaciers covered almost all of British Columbia, southern Yukon Territory, and southern Alaska, and extended south into the northwestern conterminous United States (Figure C69 and C70). The ice sheet, to a considerable extent, was confined between the high mountain ranges bordering the Canadian Cordillera on the west and east, but large areas on the east flank of the Rocky Mountains and west of the Coast Mountains were also covered by ice. Glaciers in several mountain ranges, such as the Olympic, Cascade, and Mackenzie Mountains, were more or less independent of the ice sheet, even at times of maximum ice cover.
The Cordilleran Ice Sheet about 17,000 years ago at the maximum of the last...
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Clague, J.J. (2009). Cordilleran Ice Sheet. In: Gornitz, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Paleoclimatology and Ancient Environments. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4411-3_49
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