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

• Published in: Journal of Quaternary Science
• Main Authors: Ó Cofaigh, Colm, Callard, S. Louise, Roberts, David H., Chiverrell, Richard C., Ballantyne, C. K., Evans, David J. A., Saher, Margot, Van Landeghem, Katrien J. J., Smedley, Rachel, Benetti, Sara, Burke, Matthew, Clark, Chris D., Duller, Geoff A. T., Fabel, Derek, Livingstone, Stephen J., Mccarron, Stephen, Medialdea, Alicia, Moreton, Steven G., Sacchetti, Fabio
• Other Authors: University of St Andrews. School of Geography & Sustainable Development
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: British–Irish Ice Sheet; Glacimarine sediments; Ice sheet extent; Ice sheet retreat; Last Glacial Maximum; Porcupine Bank; Radiocarbon dating; Subglacial till; Western Ireland; G Geography (General); 3rd-DAS; SDG 14 - Life Below Water; G1; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10023/22990; https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.3295

This research was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council grant NE/J007196/1 ‘Britice‐Chrono’. The work was supported by the NERC Radiocarbon Facility (Allocation No. 1722.0613 and 1878.1014). 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 ...