Quaternary glaciations of northern Europe

Abstract

This paper presents the outcome of a workshop, held in Berlin in February 2009, concerned with current research on the glacial history of northern Europe, including the British Isles. The methodologies presently used to resolve this topic are outlined. Particular attention is given to new analytical methods deriving from high resolution remote imaging of glacial terrain both on land and on the sea-bed, key new stratigraphic sections, higher resolution results from conventional geochronological methods like radiocarbon and more recently developed technologies such as luminescence and cosmogenic radionuclide dating. The relationships between the results derived from these two methods are discussed in further detail along with possible explanations for these differences. An outline of a 'most likely' glacial history of the Scandinavian and British and Irish Ice Sheets is presented along with possible links to global climate change as represented by the marine isotope (MIS) record. Tentative evidence for glaciation is identified in MIS 22, 16, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4 and 2 and correlations of 'phases' within the Last Glaciation are also explored for both the Scandinavian and British and Irish Ice Sheets. The results show that the character and extent of glaciation in different parts of the region are not synchronous and much more geochronological work is required before regional correlations can be established with confidence. Keywords: glaciation, marine isotope stages (MIS), Scandinavian Ice Sheet (SIS), British and Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS), Last Glacial Maximum Introduction and objectivesThe glaciation of northern Europe has been a subject of interest and debate for over 200 years and today, at a time of greater awareness to the consequences of climate change, the subject retains its relevance to science and society. With the development of new methodologies for dating glacial deposits and important new findings for modelling glacier response to climate change this subject requires re-evaluation and re-interpretation. Likewise it has been possible to identify critical issues that should be the focus for future research. Consequently, in February 2009 an exploratory workshop was held at the Freie Universität Berlin to examine the frequency and timing of glaciations in northern Europe (including Britain) during the Middle and Late Pleistocene. The workshop was funded by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgmeinschaft/ German Research Foundation) and involved 24 participants. This issue of Quaternary Science Reviews includes a number of the contributions presented and discussed at the meeting along with certain invited papers that present new findings on the topic of the special issue. This paper will begin by briefly reviewing the contents of the issue giving particular attention to new and important findings. This will be followed by a section that will evaluate the methodologies currently being applied to understand the glaciations of northern Europe. Some of these methodologies, such as lithostratigraphy and morphostratig...

An aeolian or a glaciolacustrine record? A case study from Mieļupīte, Middle Gauja Lowland, northeast Latvia

“…One of these was the Peipsijärv (Peipsi) ice stream and its Middle Gauja ice lobe, which is believed to have formed the Middle Gauja Lowland (Zelčs & Markots, 2004). This ice lobe was responsible for the formation of a large icedammed lake between the Gulbene (Middle Lithuanian = Słupsk Bank Phase; compare Böse et al, 2012;Marks, 2012) and Linkuva (North Lithuanian = South Middle Bank Phase) deglaciation phases which covered most of the Middle Gauja Lowland (Celiņš et al, 2014). Palaeogeographical reconstructions of the Middle Gauja ice-dammed lake indicate a stepwise drop of the water level (Nartišs, 2014), leading to emergence of the Mieļupīte site in the form of an up to 7-m-high island above the water level during the 90-m-phase in the history of the ice-dammed lake.…”

Causes of time-transgressive glacial maxima positions of the last Scandinavian Ice Sheet

“…1) has revealed 1) that the age difference between oldest and youngest maximum limits is very large, maybe ~10 ka (Larsen et al, 1999Sejrup et al, 2009), and 2) that there are systematic trends in ages of the maximum ice-sheet limit between the western, maritime margin and the eastern, continental margin (Böse et al, 2012;Clark et al, 2012;Hughes et al, 2016).…”

“…Svendsen et al (2004) with modifications in Northwest Russia . LGM maximum extent ages for different segments of the ice sheet are based on Larsen et al (1999Larsen et al ( , 2006, Lunkka et al (2001), Vorren & Plassen (2002), Demidov et al (2006), Rinterknecht et al (2006Rinterknecht et al ( , 2008, Sejrup et al (2009), Wysota et al (2009), Jessen et al (2010, Marks (2012), Böse et al (2012), Clark et al (2012), Kalm (2012) and Hughes et al (2016). Inferred ice-flow trajectories (arrows) are modified from Boulton et al (2001).…”

“…That is about 3 to 4 ka younger than the age of the maximum position in adjacent maritime areas to the west. The southern to eastern (i.e., continental) SIS maximum margin varies in age from 24 to 16 ka, becoming gradually younger from southwest to northeast (Larsen et al, 1999(Larsen et al, , 2009Lunkka et al, 2001;Demidov et al, 2006;Rinterknecht et al, 2006Rinterknecht et al, , 2008Wysota et al, 2009;Böse et al, 2012;Marks, 2012).…”

“…Ages, however, constraining maximum ice-sheet limits reveal a highly asynchronous ice sheet. This has been common knowledge among glacial geologists, but the difference both in time and in space has been unclear until recently (Böse et al, 2012;Clark et al, 2012;Hughes et al, 2016;Stroeven et al, in press). The consequence is that the Eurasian Ice Sheet was never configured as it is commonly illustrated in numerous conceptual/ overview maps.…”