Last deglaciation in northwestern Spain: New chronological and geomorphologic evidence from the Sanabria region

Late Pleistocene deglaciation in the upper Gállego Valley, central Pyrenees

“…In the Aguas Limpias Valley the ice tongue disappeared from the Respumoso Lake approximately 12 ka, and only small glaciers remained in the headwalls of the divides. Thus, glaciers may have completely disappeared from the cirques, or were reduced to residual ice patches in the headwall, as occurred in the eastern Pyrenees (Delmas et al, 2008, other northern mountains of the Iberian Peninsula (Fernández-Mosquera et al, 2000;Cowton et al, 2009;Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al, 2011), in the Central Range in central Spain (Palacios et al, , 2012a, and in Sierra Nevada, southern Spain (Gómez-Ortiz et al, 2012). In Sierra Nevada the melting of ice masses during the Bølling/Allerød period resulted in the development of rock glaciers that survived until the early Holocene ( downwasting of the alpine glaciers occurred between 14.7 and 12.9 ka (Ivy-Ochs et al, 2006Hippe et al, 2014): a similar situation occurred in the Tatra Mountains (Makos et al, 2013) and the Alps (Dielforder and Hetzel, 2014).…”

Pleistocene glacial morphology and timing of last glacial cycle in cantabrian mountains (Northern Spain): new chronological data from the Asón area

“…Similarly ice-dammed lacustrine deposits were dated in the Cantabrian Mountains [43,91,92] using radiocarbon dating establishing their age at earlier than 35 14 C ka BP, very close to the fluvioglacial filling of the Comeya depression, dated at 40.38 14 C ka BP [36,37], and Campo Mayor, dated prior to 35.7-34.8 cal BP [39] both in the Picos de Europa. Moreover, the lacustrine deposits filling the over-deepened trough at the end of the Enol Glacier in the Picos de Europa, provide dates that place the glacial maximum [38] prior to 38 14 C ka BP, although absolute dates have not been obtained for all the glacial deposits.…”

“…New research has reviewed the glacial age data from Northern Spain and the Mediterranean mountains in a detailed manner, focusing either on a single massif, or on the whole system [41][42][43][44][45][46]. These studies provide growing evidence for the asynchronicity of their glacial maxima with respect to the maximum extent of the European Ice Sheet.…”

Late Pleistocene to Holocene palaeoenvironmental variability in the north-west Spanish mountains: insights from a source-to-sink environmental magnetic study of Lake Sanabria

“…Lowest ARM values and low S‐ratios during this period, identical to those of the catchment rocks, indicate negligible mineralogical transformation during transport and deposition of glacial‐derived sediments. Coupled with geomorphological evidence (Rodríguez‐Rodríguez et al ., , ), these data indicate fullly glaciated conditions in the catchment of Lake Sanabria at those times. Pollen data from lacustrine records close to Lake Sanabria indicate the predominance of steppic vegetation in non‐glaciated neighbouring areas in response to cold and/or drier conditions at these times (Allen et al ., ; Muñoz‐Sobrino et al ., ).…”

“…These sediments accumulated in a proglacial environment at the eastern sub‐basin of Lake Sanabria between >25.5 and 13.9 cal ka BP. The occurrence of proglacial sediments before 25.5 cal ka BP indicates that the Tera glacial retreated before the global LGM (Rodríguez‐Rodríguez et al ., ; Jambrina‐Enríquez et al ., ) to create the Lake Sanabria Basin. No clear evidence of erosion during the global LGM glaciar re‐advance (Rodríguez‐Rodríguez et al ., ) has been found in sediments from this unit.…”