Cosmogenic nuclide methods have developed from theory during the 1950s to 1970s to an infant field during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and today to a mature widely applied method of Quaternary geochronology. Although surface exposure dating has been transformational in our understanding of cryosphere response to climate change, it has been limited by measurement precision, detection limit, and large systematic uncertainties that have remained too large to answer questions requiring high precision, such as millennial and sub-millennial climate change. This dissertation focuses on the improvement of cosmogenic nuclide production systematics, and application of the improved systematics to questions in glacial geology and paleoclimatology requiring low-level high precision surface exposure dating.

I present new measurements of ³He production rates from Tabernacle Hill, Utah, and combine the new measurements with a compilation of all published ³He production rate determinations. Results indicate that the scatter in ³He production rates is commensurate with other cosmogenic nuclides when interpreted in a consistent manor. The production rate compilation is then implemented into a web-based exposure age calculator to make interpretation of ³He exposure age data consistent with that of ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al. I also present precise ¹⁰Be production rates (±3%) for two well-dated surfaces in southern Norway, which show excellent agreement with other recent ¹⁰Be production rate calibration studies from the western United States, northeastern North America, and Scotland and lower overall production rates than the canonical ¹⁰Be production rate. The new production rate determination affords high precision dating of Scandinavian ice sheet dynamics by suppression of systematic uncertainties introduced by scaling models, facilitating comparison of moraine records with high-resolution climate proxies.

In my first application example, I make use of improved ¹⁰Be measurement and production rate precision and present ¹⁰Be depth profiles from deltas and terraces in the Scoresby Sund region of Greenland. The ¹⁰Be depth profiles yield ages younger than exposure dates from boulders on the same surface and are in agreement with radiocarbon ages of the same or correlative deposits. The inheritance magnitude in the sediment is also calculated from the depth profiles and used to estimate the magnitude of glacial erosion performed by the Greenland ice sheet during the last glacial period. Finally, I present a new approach to using pro- and sub-glacial bedrock as climate archive recorded in glacier terminus variations. This study also reports the first in situ ¹⁴C measurements from the LDEO in situ ¹⁴C laboratory. Results indicate that the Rhone Glacier was smaller than today for several millennia during the Holocene and that glacial erosion rates are slightly lower than canonical values. The prevalence of exposed bedrock in proglacial localities makes this new method potentially applicable on a global scale and may allow for the reconstruction of integrated size histories of many glaciers relative to their modern positions.