Extent, age and dynamics of Marine Isotope Stage 3 glaciations in the southwestern Baltic Basin

Abstract

Houmark‐Nielsen, M. 2010: Extent, age and dynamics of Marine Isotope Stage 3 glaciations in the southwestern Baltic Basin. Boreas, 10.1111/j.1502‐3885.2009.00136.x. ISSN 0300‐9483 The southwestern Baltic region is known as a major crossroad for the expansion of Pleistocene glaciers from the Scandinavian Ice Sheet (SIS). At the peak of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 25–20 kyr BP), steady‐flowing inter‐stream glaciers expanded radially from the major ice divide over central Scandinavia. During the subsequent deglaciation phase (20–15 kyr BP), streaming ice was flowing through the Baltic gateway onto the North European lowland. The lithology and directional ice‐flow properties of pre‐LGM till formations of Baltic provenance in Denmark (the Ristinge till and Klintholm till) suggest that the ice‐sheet dynamics during the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 glacier expansion were similar to those for the post‐LGM advances. Increasing geological evidence indicates that glaciers extended onto the Circum‐Baltic lowlands during MIS 3. Reconstructions of flow paths and estimates of the basal ice‐sheet coupling in Denmark suggest that southward flow of the SIS through the Baltic was probably the result of ice streaming. Despite methodological uncertainties, available OSL and 14C dates indicate that glaciers advanced at least twice during the mild second half of the Middle Weichselian (c. 75–25 kyr BP), most probably in connection with Dansgaard‐Oeschger (D‐O) events 14–13 (54–46 kyr BP) and 8–5 (35–30 kyr BP). The chronology and dynamics of glacier expansion in the southwestern Baltic in response to long‐term cooling trends, the contemporary presence of a low Arctic biota in large parts of Scandinavia and of possible leads or lags in relation to North Atlantic climate changes during MIS 3 are discussed.

Discriminating between subglacial and proglacial lake sediments: an example from the Dänischer Wohld Peninsula, northern Germany

“…In northern Germany the ice sheet reached its maximum extent at~22 ka BP (e.g. HoumarkNielsen et al, 2003;Sommer and Benecke, 2009;Houmark-Nielsen, 2010;Ukkonen et al, 2011). The observed sedimentary succession of waterlain sediments capped by subglacial till is consistent with ice advance, and the two~23 ka are within error and in agreement with the regional geochronology.…”

“…Retreat of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet and development of icefree conditions in northern Germany and Denmark after 29 ka BP was followed by renewed growth of the Baltic ice streams to their maximum limits between 25 and 22 ka BP (Houmark-Nielsen and Jørgensen and Piotrowski, 2003;Larsen et al, 2009;Sommer and Benecke, 2009;Houmark-Nielsen, 2010;Ukkonen et al, 2011), terminating some 50 km to the south and 25 km to the west of the study area. Stratigraphic investigations have identified five glacial fluctuations during this expansion, the first four of which took place south of the study area, which remained ice covered (Stephan and Menke, 1977;Stephan et al, 1983;Prange, 1987Prange, , 1990.…”

Quaternary glaciations of northern Europe

“…Ages implying glacier advances during the late Saalian, the Early and Middle Weichselian as well as the Late Weichselian were put forward (Forman, 1999;Larsen et al, 1999;Mangerud et al, 2001) and were integrated into an ice sheet history of northern Eurasia by Svendsen et al, (2004). Chronologies and deglaciation patterns based on or integrating the results from luminescence dating on different temporal and spatial scales were also put forward for the Vistula region in north-central Poland (Wysota et al, 2002(Wysota et al, , 2009), north-eastern Germany (Lüthgens and Böse, 2011), southern Jylland in Denmark (Houmark-Nielsen, 2007), Småland in southern Sweden (Alexanderson and Murray, 2007), southern Sweden and Bornholm (Kjaer et al, 2006), the southwestern Baltic basin (Houmark-Nielsen and Kjaer, 2003;Houmark-Nielsen, 2010), the Rondane area in east-central southern Norway (Bøe et al, 2007), northern Scotland (Duller et al, 1995), Buchan in north-eastern Scotland (Gemmell et al, 2007), and north Norfolk in the United Kingdom .…”

“…Its extent is difficult to define because end moraines are absent. According to Houmark-Nielsen (2010), it may have reached even farther than the classical LGM in southern Denmark and the very northern part of Germany. A first ice advance to northeastern Germany during early or middle Weichselian time, although still undated today, has also been discussed by Rühberg et al (1995), but it's possible extent has not yet been reconstructed.…”

Drumlinised glaciofluvial and glaciolacustrine sediments on the Småland peneplain, South Sweden – new information on the growth and decay history of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheets during MIS 3

“…His results were never officially published, except for some posthumously published talks (Strandmark, 1956(Strandmark, , 1957. More detailed investigations were carried out by Rydstr€ om (1965,1971), who described these deposits as occurring both in open-terrain position as cores in drumlins, as Svendsen et al (2004); blue outer dashed line ¼ MIS 3 ice margin according to Mangerud et al (1991b); blue inner dashed line ¼ MIS 3 ice margin as summarised in Mangerud et al (2011); purple dashed line ¼ MIS 3 Ristinge advance according to Houmark-Nielsen (2010); black dashed line ¼ MIS 3 Klintholm advance according to Houmark-Nielsen (2010). (B) Map of southern Sweden (for location, white box in (A)), showing areas above and below the highest shoreline (marine limit in the west) at deglaciation, and inferred ice-marginal positions according to Lundqvist (2009).…”