The Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD) is one of the largest boreal freshwater deltas in the world. This important area is mostly situated within Canada’s largest national park, Wood Buffalo National Park, and has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Ramsar Wetland of International Importance. This is a challenging area to manage as it is a complex hydrologic system that is sensitive to small changes in water level due to the low topographic relief. In order to make informed long-term water-management decisions for the delta, natural variations in water level must be fully understood. We present preliminary findings from relict shorelines on the west side of the PAD to evaluate whether these landforms can be used to create a paleohydrograph, similar to recent efforts in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Forty relict shorelines have been identified in this strandplain that are splayed laterally to the west of Lake Claire. During summer 2016 three ridges were visited by helicopter because of the remote location and difficult terrain. The three ridges studied were among the youngest in the strandplain and ranged from 30 to 90 meters in width and up to a few metres in height above adjacent wetlands, which included open water and floating mats with sedge or willow. A transect through the treed ridges was surveyed to determine the morphology of the ridges, ground penetrating radar was used to define subsurface stratigraphy, and soil-pits were hand-dug to investigate the type of sediment and stratigraphy as well as to sample for age of deposition using optically stimulated luminescence. Efforts are currently underway compiling and analyzing data to characterize these well-preserved relict shorelines and better understand the evolution of water level in this internationally recognized complex and dynamic system.
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