Neoglacial glacier changes around Storstrommen, North-East Greenland

• Main Authors: Weidick, A., Andreasen, C., Oerter, Hans, Reeh, N.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 1996
• Subjects: East Greenland; eskimo*; Germania land; glacier; Greenland; Polarforschung
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/3306/; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.13889

Early Holocene recession of the ice cover over Germania Land in North-East Greenland 7.5 ka B.P. brought the Inland Ice margin back to a position close to the present. Continued recessions after that time lead to the formation of a "Storstrømmen Sound" which separated Germania Land from mainland Greenland in the period from about 6 to 1 ka B.P. The present filling of the approximately 100 km long sound by the glaciers of Storstrømmen and Kofoed-Hansen Brae must therefore have taken place during the Little Ice Age. In an archaeological sense this implies deterioration of the living conditions of Neo-Eskimos compared to those of Palaeo-Eskimos.The neoglacial re-formation and present existence of the glaciers as a Little Ice Age relict may imply a present-day instability in their dynamics, as demonstrated by the pulsations (surge-like behaviour) in the last part of the 20th century. An earlier Little Ice Age advance might possibly have had the same amplitude as that documented from the 20th century but its exact age and character is not known.The glacio-isostatic response of the earth's crust to the variations in the Holocene glacier load implies a relatively slow and slight emergence and subsequent submergence. The shift from emergence to submergence must have taken place between about 2 and 1 ka B.P.