Lake sediment studies of Holocene glacial activity in the Kårsa valley, northern Sweden: contrasts in interpretation

A multidisciplinary study of lake sediments deposited in lake basins in the Kårsa valley, northern Sweden, suggests the complete disappearance of the Kårsa glacier during the early and mid-Holocene. Glacier reformation, indicated by the deposition of sediment with a fine particle size distribution a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Holocene
Main Authors: Snowball, I., Sandgren, P.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publications 1996
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/095968369600600312
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/095968369600600312
Description
Summary:A multidisciplinary study of lake sediments deposited in lake basins in the Kårsa valley, northern Sweden, suggests the complete disappearance of the Kårsa glacier during the early and mid-Holocene. Glacier reformation, indicated by the deposition of sediment with a fine particle size distribution and low organic content in the three lakes, took place at c. 3000 14 C years BP. This interpretation contrasts with a study based on the weight loss-on-ignition of the same sediments, which suggests several glacier advances throughout the entire Holocene. The contrasting interpretation is due to different methodological approaches. Single-core (site) studies should be avoided in the future and only features that are consistently reproducible and can be dated in spatially distributed cores should be interpreted in terms of variations in glacial activity, environmental conditions and ultimately, climate.