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The deglaciation patterns of the Bergen and Nordfjord‐Sunnmøre areas in western Norway are described and correlated. In the Bergen area the coast was first deglaciated at 12,600 B.P., with a succeeding re‐advance into the North Sea around 12,200 B.P. Later, during the Allerød, the inland ice retreated at least 50 km, but nearly reached the sea again during the Younger Dryas re‐advance, ending at 10,000 B.P. Sunnmøre was ice‐free during an interstadial 28,000–38,000 B.P. Later the inland ice reached the sea. The final deglaciation is poorly dated in Sunnmøre, while further south in Nordfjord, it started slightly before 12,300 B.P., followed by a major retreat. No large re‐advance of the inland ice occurred during the Younger Dryas. However, in the Sunnmøre‐Nordfjord area many local glaciers formed outside the inland ice during the Younger Dryas. Limnic sediments outside one such cirque glacier have been cored and dated, proving that the glacier did not exist at 12,300‐11,000 B.P., and that it was formed and disappeared in the time interval 11,000–10,000 B.P. (Younger Dryas). The erosion rate of the cirque glacier was 0.9 mm/year.

A complete interglacial cycle, named the FjGsangerian and correlated with the Eemian by means of its pollen stratigraphy, is found in marine sediments just above the present day sea level outside Bergen, western Norway. At the base of the section there are two basal tills of assumed Saalian (sensu lato) age in which the mineralogy and geochemistry indicate local provenance. Above occur beds of marine silt, sand and gravel, deposited at water depths of between 10 and 50 m. The terrestrial pollen and the marine foraminifera and molluscs indicate a cold-warm+old sequence with parallel development of the atmospheric and sea surface temperatures. In both environments the floralfauna indicate an interglacial climatic optimum at least as warm as that during the Holocene. The high relative sea level during the Eemian (at least 30 m above sea level) requires younger neotectonic uplift. The uppermost marine beds are partly glaciomarine silts, as indicated by their mineralogy, drop stones and fauna, and partly interstadid gravels. The pollen indicates an open vegetation throughout these upper beds, and the correlation of the described interstadid with Early Weichselian interstadids elsewhere is essentially unknown. The section is capped by an Early Weichselian basal till containing redeposited fossils, sediments, and weathering products. Several clastic dikes injected from the glacier sole penetrate the tiU and the interglacial sediments. Radiocarbon dates on wood and shells gave infinite ages. Amino acid epimerization ratios in molluscs support the inferred Eemian age of the deposit. The Fj@sangerian is correlated with the Eemian and deep sea oxygen isotope stage 5e; other possible correlations are also discussed.