Seismic-stratigraphic record of a deglaciation sequence: from the marine Laflamme Gulf to Lake Saint-Jean ( late Quaternary, Quebec, Canada)

The stratigraphy of the last deglaciation sequence is investigated in Lake Saint-Jean (Quebec Province, Canada) based on 300km of echo-sounder two dimensional seismic profiles. The sedimentary archive of this basin is documented from the Late Pleistocene Laurentidian ice-front recession to the present-day situation. Ten seismic units have been identified that reflect spatio-temporal variations in depositional processes characterizing different periods of the Saint-Jean basin evolution. During the postglacial marine flooding, a high deposition rate of mud settling, from proglacial glacimarine and then prodeltaic plumes in the Laflamme Gulf, produced an extensive, up to 50m thick mud sheet draping the isostatically depressed marine basin floor. Subsequently, a closing of the water body due to glacio-isostatic rebound occurred at 8.5 cal. ka BP, drastically modifying the hydrodynamics. Hyperpycnal flows appeared because fresh lake water replaced dense marine water. River sediments were transferred towards the deeper part of the lake into river-related sediment drifts and confined lobes. The closing of the water body is also marked by the onset of a wind-driven internal circulation associating coastal hydrodynamics and bottom currents with sedimentary features including shoreface deposits, sediment drifts and a prograding shelf-type body. The fingerprints of a forced regression are well expressed by mouth-bar systems and by the shoreface-shelf system, the latter unexpected in such a lacustrine setting. In both cases, a regressive surface of lacustrine erosion (RSLE) has been identified, separating sandy mouth-bar from glaciomarine to prodeltaic muds, and sandy shoreface wedges from the heterolithic shelf-type body, respectively. The Lake Saint-Jean record is an example of a regressive succession driven by a glacio-isostatic rebound and showing the transition from late-glacial to post-glacial depositional systems.