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An unlikely discovery in a cave on Prince of Wales Island could help scientists understand Earth’s climate history. A small pile of sand and stones tells the story of formidable glacial meltwater floods that washed through Southeast Alaska during the last Ice Age.

Paul Wilcox is a paleoclimate researcher at the University of Lapland in Finland. While looking for stalactites and stalagmites on Prince of Wales Island in 2022, he stumbled across something odd in Devil’s Canopy Cave.

“I found this very impressive pile of sediment in one of the cave rooms,” he said.

The pile is made of rounded cobbles and pebbles on top of sand, which is unlike what he usually finds in most caves.

“It often is eith

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