Deglaciation of western Central Norway

Abstract

Oslo. ISSN 0300-9483.The glacier movements and corresponding ice margins in Central Norway during Younger Dryas and Preboreal are reconstructed. Scattered, older marginal deposits are difficult to correlate. Raised beach features indicate that the deep fiords became ice-free at an early stage due to calving. In Mere og Romsdal county the glacier front lay at the fiord heads during Younger Dryas, with extensive local glaciation in the intervening mountain areas, and a limit of glaciation 500-600 m lower than the present. In certain places local moraines older than Younger Dryas have been preserved. Autochthonous block fields are widespread in the mountains of Mdre og Romsdal. The lower limit of block fields lies at c. 500 m above sea level on the outermost coast and rises to c. 1500 m above sea level in the interior fjord country. No erratics, striation or lateral moraines from the inland ice have been found above this limit. Its gradient, which in outer fjord districts is about 1 %, seems to indicate the ice surface at the last maximum of Weichsel glaciation.

Pronival rampart formation in relation to snow-avalanche activity and Schmidt-hammer exposure-age dating (SHD): Three case studies from southern Norway

“…Blikra and Selvik, 1998;Blikra and Sletten, 2002;Nesje et al, 2007;Matthews et al, 2009;Vasskog et al, in press). The Alnesreset ramparts probably formed under more severe climatic conditions of the Younger Dryas Stadial (c. 13,000-11,500 years ago), which is consistent with the mapped limits of the Younger Dryas ice-sheet near Alnesreset (Carlson et al, 1983; see also Sørbel, 1979, Sollid andSørbel, 1981). It follows from the SHD ages of surface boulders that these ramparts must have been essentially inactive throughout the Holocene, even during the major Neoglacial events, such as the Erdalen Event, the Finse Event and thè Little Ice Age' (cf.…”

Diagnostic characteristics and paleodynamics of supraglacial rock avalanches, Innerdalen, Western Norway

“…This is expressed by oversteepened valleys, rock slopes, and fjords up to 1000 m deep. The extent of penultimate and earlier Quaternary glaciations is not yet well defined, in contrast to our growing knowledge of the dynamics, chronology, and extent of glaciations in Norway during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the Younger Dryas (YD) (Olsen et al, 2013a;Sollid & Sørbel, 1979) (Fig. 1).…”

Glacial survival of blockfields on the Varanger Peninsula, northern Norway

“…Because high mountains (potential nunataks) are situated close to the coast in the north-western part of southern Norway the majority of previous work has been focused there. Several authors have suggested that the regional distribution of the lower boundary of blockfields represent the upper limit of the last Pleistocene ice sheet (Dahl, 1948;Ives, 1978;Sollid and Sørbel, 1979;Nesje et al, 1987;Rye et al, 1987;Dahl, 1992;Ballantyne, 1997). Exposure dating of bedrock below weathering limits has supported the interpretation of trimlines representing the upper limit of glacial erosion (e.g.…”