Researchers at UNBC made a new discovery recently about the impact of climate change on glaciers.
Dr. Brian Menounos, UNBC Geography Professor, explains a glacier that covered most of BC around 20,000 years ago, retreated earlier than what they originally found.
“The Cordilleran ice sheet was a fairly large chunk of ice was about 800 to almost 1,000 metres thick over Prince George.”
The research, conducted alongside the University of Manchester, also suggests that people migrating inland may have used a different path due to glaciers melting at a faster rate.
Dr. Menounos says this includes the Far East and other lands across the Pacific Ocean.
“We were interested in the link to climate, but one of the sidenotes was those earlier ages also provide some geologic evidence of a coastal route potentially viable at that time for people migrating from Asia into the Americas.”
For a complete report on UNBC’s findings, you can click here.