Glacial history of the Maritime Alps from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Little Ice Age

Abstract

A complete sequence of glacial deposits and moraines within the same valley system in\ud the Maritime Alps, spanning from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the Little Ice Age is presented.\ud The sequence is geomorphologically and morphostratigraphically coherent and most stadials\ud have been chronologically constrained by their cosmogenic exposure ages, lichenometry and by\ud correlation with radiocarbon-dated moraines in neighbouring valleys. The shape, extent and thickness\ud of the palaeoglaciers at each stadial have also been reconstructed and their equilibrium line\ud altitude calculated. The LGM moraine of the Gesso Basin bears a similar equilibrium line altitude\ud and age to that of other LGM moraines across the Alps. The recognized Late-glacial stadials show\ud strong similarities with the corresponding stadials of the central–eastern Alpine valleys, such as\ud Gschnitz, Bu¨hl, Daun and Egesen. The recalculation of the exposure ages of moraine boulders\ud with a new production rate better defines the LGM (24.0 ka) and the Egesen Stadial (13.0 ka),\ud while the Bu¨hl Stadial (18.5 ka) is dated for the first time in the Alps. Three early Holocene glacial\ud advances are defined and correlated to the Kartell, Kromer and Go¨schenen I stadials, widely recognized\ud in other Alpine sectors. Lichenometric dates indicate a three-fold oscillation during the\ud Little Ice Age (thirteenth, seventeenth and nineteenth centuries)

Quaternary glaciation in the Mediterranean mountains: a new synthesis

“…Recent cosmogenic exposure dating by Federici et al (2008Federici et al ( , 2012 has helped constrain the timings of advances, revealing a classic Alpine succession of LGM, Gschnitz (equivalent in time to Heinrich Event I) and Egesen (Younger Dryas) moraines. This work is further refined in this volume by Federici et al (2016), who present more ages from moraines to reinforce the view that the classic Alpine succession is evident in the Maritime Alps.…”

“…The timing of glaciations in the Mediterranean mountains has been constrained using a range of approaches. Examples presented in this volume include cosmogenic nuclide exposure dating of boulders and bedrock surfaces (Akçar et al 2015;Federici et al 2016;Palacios et al 2016;Pope et al 2015;Turu et al 2016), radiocarbon dating of basal glacial lake deposits (Giraudi & Giaccio 2015;Serrano et al 2016;Turu et al 2016), Ar/Ar dating of tephras in mountain basins (Giraudi & Giaccio 2015), optically stimulated luminescence dating of glacio-fluvial outwash deposits (Serrano et al 2016;Turu et al 2016) and uranium series dating of secondary carbonate cements Serrano et al 2016) in glacial and glacio-fluvial deposits.…”

“…Examples are found in Morocco (Hughes et al 2011a), in the Maritime Alps (Federici et al 2008(Federici et al , 2016 and in Greece (Pope et al 2015). The presence of glaciers (rather than rock glaciers) in these areas during the Younger Dryas suggests an excess of snow accumulation over the supply of debris.…”

“…There have been numerous studies in the last decade or so in the western Balkans, but large areas remain unstudied, including most of Bosnia and parts of Greece. In Italy, only a few areas have seen both mapping and dating applied to the glacial successions (Giraudi & Frezzotti 1997;Kotarba et al 2001;Federici et al 2008Federici et al , 2012Federici et al , 2016Giraudi et al 2011;Giraudi Giraudi & Giaccio 2015). In Morocco, the mapping and advanced phases are only just beginning and here too this work is restricted to a relatively small area around the SW High Atlas.…”

Pollen from accurately dated speleothems supports alpine glacier low-stands during the early Holocene

“…The current chronology of Alpine glacier fluctuations is fragmentary and relies to a large extent on cosmogenic surface exposure dating of moraine sequences (e.g., Ivy-Ochs et al, 2009;Goehring et al, 2011;Schimmelpfennig et al, 2012;Federici et al, 2016) and radiocarbon dating of organic material from glacier forefields (e.g., Joerin et al, 2006Joerin et al, , 2008Monegato et al, 2007;Nicolussi and Schlüchter, 2012;Ravazzi et al, 2012Ravazzi et al, , 2014. Due to regional climate variations and contrasting response times of individual glaciers (Kirkbride and Winkler, 2012) comparison between sites remains challenging, calling for continuous reconstructions of single glacier size variations (Solomina et al, 2015).…”