Maximum extent of the Eurasian ice sheets in the Barents and Kara Sea region during the Weichselian

• Main Authors: John Inge Svendsen, Valery I. Astakhov, Dimitri Yu. Bolshiyanov, Igor Demidov, Julian A. Dowdeswell, Valery Gataullin, Christian Hjort, Hans W. Hubberten, Eiliv Larsen, Jan Mangerud, Martin Melles, Per Mo Ller, Matti Saarnisto, Martin, J. Siegert
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1999
• Subjects: Arctic; Boreas; Kara Sea; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.532.3844; http://www.geol.lu.se/personal/prm/eng/PDF_papers full text/Boreas_1999_svendsen_QUEEN.pdf

(March): Maximum extent of the Eurasian ice sheets in the Barents and Kara Sea region during the Weichse-lian. Boreas, Vol. 28, pp. 234–242. Oslo. ISSN 0300-9483. Based on field investigations in northern Russia and interpretation of offshore seismic data, we have made a preliminary reconstruction of the maximum ice-sheet extent in the Barents and Kara Sea region during the Early/Middle Weichselian and the Late Weichselian. Our investigations indicate that the Barents and Kara ice sheets attained their maximum Weichselian positions in northern Russia prior to 50 000 yr BP, whereas the northeastern flank of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet advanced to a maximum position shortly after 17 000 calen-dar years ago. During the Late Weichselian (25 000–10 000 yr BP), much of the Russian Arctic remained ice-free. According to our reconstruction, the extent of the ice sheets in the Barents and Kara Sea region during the Late Weichselian glacial maximum was less than half that of the maximum model which, up to now, has been widely used as a boundary condition for testing and refining General Circulation Models (GCMs). Preli-minary numerical-modelling experiments predict Late Weichselian ice sheets which are larger than the ice ex-