Late Pleistocene glacial and lake history of northwestern Russia

• Main Authors: Eiliv Larsen, Kurt H. Kjær, Igor N. Demidov, Svend Funder, Kari Grøsfjeld, Maria Jensen, Henriette Linge, Astrid Lyså
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2006
• Subjects: Barents Sea; Dammed Lake; Kara Sea; White Sea; Arkhangelsk; Ice cap; Ice Sheet; Pechora; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.526.2844

Five regionally significant Weichselian glacial events, each separated by terrestrial and marine interstadial conditions, are described from northwestern Russia. The first glacial event took place in the Early Weichselian. An ice sheet centred in the Kara Sea area dammed up a large lake in the Pechora lowland. Water was discharged across a threshold on the Timan Ridge and via an ice-free corridor between the Scandinavian Ice Sheet and the Kara Sea Ice Sheet to the west and north into the Barents Sea. The next glaciation occurred around 7570 kyr BP after an interstadial episode that lasted c. 15 kyr. A local ice cap developed over the Timan Ridge at the transition to the Middle Weichselian. Shortly after deglaciation of the Timan ice cap, an ice sheet centred in the Barents Sea reached the area. The configuration of this ice sheet suggests that it was confluent with the Scandinavian Ice Sheet. Consequently, around 7065 kyr BP a huge ice-dammed lake formed in the White Sea basin (the ‘White Sea Lake’), only now the outlet across the Timan Ridge discharged water eastward into the Pechora area. The Barents Sea Ice Sheet likely suffered marine down-draw that led to its rapid collapse. The White Sea Lake drained into the Barents Sea, and marine inundation and interstadial conditions followed between 65 and 55 kyr BP. The glaciation that followed was centred in the Kara Sea area around 5545 kyr BP. Northward directed fluvial runoff in the Arkhangelsk region indicates that the Kara Sea Ice Sheet was independent of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet and that the Barents Sea remained ice free. This glaciation was succeeded by a c. 20-kyr-long ice-free and periglacial period