In July 2009, Dr. Paul Sanborn undertook the first soils field research at the Fort Selkirk volcanic field in central Yukon, with helicopter support and funding from the Yukon Geological Survey. This file includes digital photographs of the 2009 field work at the Ft. Selkirk site. Some of the digital photographs have been annotated as PDFs.
In July 2009, Dr. Paul Sanborn undertook the first soils field research at the Fort Selkirk volcanic field in central Yukon, with helicopter support and funding from the Yukon Geological Survey. This file consists of prints of aerial photographs that depict the area accessed for the study, upstream from the confluence of the Yukon River and the Pelly River.
Air photographs include:
Flight line A17210, Photo Nos. 54-60 (taken 1960)
Flight line A22354, Photo Nos. 43-45, 47-48 (taken 1971)
Flight line A27516, Photo Nos. 48-52 (taken 1989)
For July 1-7, 2009, Dr. Paul Sanborn did the first soils field research at the Fort Selkirk volcanic field in central Yukon, with helicopter support and funding from the Yukon Geological Survey.
Initial findings were published in the 2009 edition of Yukon Exploration and Geology, but this paper did not include most of the laboratory data:
Sanborn, P., 2010. Soil reconnaissance of the Fort Selkirk volcanic field, Yukon (115I/13 and 14). In: Yukon Exploration and Geology 2009, K.E. MacFarlane, L.H. Weston and L.R. Blackburn (eds.), Yukon Geological Survey, Whitehorse, Yukon. pp. 293-304. https://emrlibrary.gov.yk.ca/ygs/yeg/2009/2009_p293-304.pdf [Note that in Fig. 1, the labels for Camp 1 and Camp 2 on map are transposed; Camp 1 should be to the east of Camp 2.]
During the 1980s, Agriculture Canada pedologists Scott Smith (retired from Summerland Research Station, formerly based in Whitehorse) and Charles Tarnocai (retired from Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa) had a large field program which addressed the trends in soil development in the central Yukon. Across this region, particularly between Whitehorse and Dawson City, the land surfaces and surficial deposits vary greatly in age due to the differing extents of glaciations over the past ~2 million years.
This work built on a pioneering study from the previous decade:
Foscolos, A.E., N.W. Rutter, and O.L. Hughes. 1977. The use of pedological studies in interpreting the Quaternary history of central Yukon Territory. Bulletin 271. Geological Survey of Canada, Ottawa. 48 p. https://doi.org/10.4095/103066
Tarnocai and Smith presented their results in two publications:
C. A. S. Smith, C. Tarnocai, and O. L. Hughes. 1986. Pedological investigations of Pleistocene glacial drift surfaces in the central Yukon. Géographie physique et Quaternaire, 40 (1): 29–37. https://doi.org/10.7202/032620ar
Tarnocai, C. and C. A. S. Smith. 1989. Micromorphology and development of some central Yukon paleosols, Canada. Geoderma 45 (2): 145-162. https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-7061(89)90047-5
Tarnocai and Smith shared the unpublished data and soil samples from this work with Dr. Paul Sanborn, and this resulted in a student project published as:
Daviel, E., P. Sanborn, C. Tarnocai, and C.A.A. Smith. 2011.Clay mineralogy and chemical properties of argillic horizons in central Yukon paleosols. Canadian Journal of Soil Science 91: 83-93. https://doi.org/10.4141/cjss10067
The Lost Chicken Mine, a placer gold mine in eastern Alaska, approximately 120 km west of Dawson City, Yukon, is an important fossil locality for the late Pliocene (approximately 2.5 – 3.0 million years ago). A comprehensive account of the stratigraphy and paleontology of this site was given by:
Matthews, J.V., Jr., J.A. Westgate, L. Ovenden, L.D. Carter, and T. Fouch. 2003. Stratigraphy, fossils, and age of sediments at the upper pit of the Lost Chicken gold mine: new information on the late Pliocene environment of east central Alaska. Quaternary Research 60: 9-18. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0033-5894(03)00087-5
Dr. Paul Sanborn visited the site on July 20, 2004, as part of a group led by Duane Froese (Professor, University of Alberta). The group concentrated on a single exposure (~ 2 m thick) straddling the Lost Chicken tephra, a volcanic ash bed (2.9 ± 0.4 myr) which is a major stratigraphic marker at the site. Sanborn described, photographed, and sampled this exposure, and obtained a basic set of characterization data. Intact samples were collected but thin sections were never produced.