Timing and pace of ice‐sheet withdrawal across the marine–terrestrial transition west of Ireland during the last glaciation

Abstract

Understanding the pace and drivers of marine‐based ice‐sheet retreat relies upon the integration of numerical ice‐sheet models with observations from contemporary polar ice sheets and well‐constrained palaeo‐glaciological reconstructions. This paper provides a reconstruction of the retreat of the last British–Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS) from the Atlantic shelf west of Ireland during and following the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). It uses marine‐geophysical data and sediment cores dated by radiocarbon, combined with terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide and optically stimulated luminescence dating of onshore ice‐marginal landforms, to reconstruct the timing and rate of ice‐sheet retreat from the continental shelf and across the adjoining coastline of Ireland, thus including the switch from a marine‐ to a terrestrially‐based ice‐sheet margin. Seafloor bathymetric data in the form of moraines and grounding‐zone wedges on the continental shelf record an extensive ice sheet west of Ireland during the LGM which advanced to the outer shelf. This interpretation is supported by the presence of dated subglacial tills and overridden glacimarine sediments from across the Porcupine Bank, a westwards extension of the Irish continental shelf. The ice sheet was grounded on the outer shelf at ~26.8 ka cal bp with initial retreat underway by 25.9 ka cal bp. Retreat was not a continuous process but was punctuated by marginal oscillations until ~24.3 ka cal bp. The ice sheet thereafter retreated to the mid‐shelf where it formed a large grounding‐zone complex at ~23.7 ka cal bp. This retreat occurred in a glacimarine environment. The Aran Islands on the inner continental shelf were ice‐free by ~19.5 ka bp and the ice sheet had become largely terrestrially based by 17.3 ka bp. This suggests that the Aran Islands acted to stabilize and slow overall ice‐sheet retreat once the BIIS margin had reached the inner shelf. Our results constrain the timing of initial retreat of the BIIS from the outer shelf west of Ireland to the period of minimum global eustatic sea level. Initial retreat was driven, at least in part, by glacio‐isostatically induced, high relative sea level. Net rates of ice‐sheet retreat across the shelf were slow (62–19 m a−1) and reduced (8 m a−1) as the ice sheet vacated the inner shelf and moved onshore. A picture therefore emerges of an extensive BIIS on the Atlantic shelf west of Ireland, in which early, oscillatory retreat was followed by slow episodic retreat which decelerated further as the ice margin became terrestrially based. More broadly, this demonstrates the importance of localized controls, in particular bed topography, on modulating the retreat of marine‐based sectors of ice sheets.

Exploring controls of the early and stepped deglaciation on the western margin of the British Irish Ice Sheet

“…16). Evidence across the continental shelf of the western BIIS suggests that this ice margin extended also north and south of the Malin Sea, following predominantly the shelf edge at 140–150 m (current) water depth from northern Scotland to northern Porcupine Bank, with coalescing ice from Scotland and Ireland (Benetti et al ., 2010; Schiele, 2017; Bradwell et al ., 2021; Ó Cofaigh et al ., 2021). This recognition that the BIIS extended to the edge of the Malin Shelf led Wilson et al .…”

Growth and retreat of the last British–Irish Ice Sheet, 31 000 to 15 000 years ago: the BRITICE‐CHRONO reconstruction

“…Geological evidence for this happening is reported in Ó Cofaigh et al . (2021), but in our preferred model run presented here (Fig. 6, and see annotation at 27 ka) the Porcupine Ice Cap never quite emerges, even though it did in some model runs (Fig.…”

“…In Galway Bay, our margin position is consistent with the Bayesian age sequence modelling (Ó Cofaigh et al . 2021), but there is no change in margin position for the remainder of the west of Ireland. On the Malin Sea coast, Corvish was now ice free (McCabe & Clark 2003).…”

“…2021; Ó Cofaigh et al . 2021; Scourse et al . 2021), each documenting ice‐marginal positions, flow geometry and geochronological constraints as the ice margin withdrew.…”

“…The complete sequence of retreat from Porcupine Bank to the modern‐day coast is reconstructed using Bayesian age sequence modelling in the transect overview paper (Ó Cofaigh et al . 2021). Ice was grounded on the outer shelf at 27 ka and retreat had started by 26 ka, reaching a mid‐shelf pause at 24 ka where it built the large grounding zone wedge.…”