Detrital zircon U–Pb age analysis of last glacial loess sources and proglacial sediment dynamics in the Northern European Plain

• Published in: Quaternary Science Reviews
• Main Authors: Baykal, Yunus, Stevens, Thomas, Engström-Johansson, Alexandra, Skurzyński, Jacek, Zhang, Hanzhi, He, Jing, Lu, Huayu, Adamiec, Grzegorz, Költringer, Chiara, Jary, Zdzisław
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Luft-, vatten- och landskapslära 2021
• Subjects: Geology; Archaeology; Ecology; Evolution; Behavior and Systematics; Global and Planetary Change; Dust; Provenance; Quaternary; Poland; River dynamics; Geosciences; Multidisciplinary; Multidisciplinär geovetenskap; Geologi; Fennoscandian; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-458980; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.107265

Loess deposits along the northern fringe of the European loess belt potentially record past changes in dust emission from areas proximal to former ice sheets. Recent chronologies from loess deposits across this region generally agree on greatly enhanced dust deposition rates when the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet reached its maximum extent during the late last glacial. However, uncertainties over the material's source and origin limit understanding of the causes of this enhanced dust activity. In particular, loess in southwestern Poland has been attributed to multiple origins, mainly involving glaciofluvial outwash plains along the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet margin and/or local sources in the mountainous areas of the Sudetes and Western Carpathians. Here we apply detrital zircon U–Pb age analyses for a large number of grains recovered from four loess samples taken from different stratigraphic units exposed at Biały Kościół in southwestern Poland, previously luminescence dated to MIS 4–2, to assess loess provenance as well as its temporal evolution during last glacial Fennoscandian Ice Sheet fluctuations. Furthermore, we analysed the detrital zircon U–Pb age spectra of five samples from potential source sediments to constrain the history of sediment recycling and mixing within the Northern European Plain prior to deflation and loess deposition. The broad range of zircon age components detected in the four loess samples suggests both Fennoscandian and closer Peri-Gondwanan proto-sources while a narrow, dominant Carboniferous age peak is consistent with sourcing from the local Strzelin Hills in the Sudetic foreland. However, the presence of both Fennoscandian and Peri-Gondwanan derived grains in samples from potential source sediments reveals that this mixture of sediment sources is widespread across the Northern European Plain, as a result of long-term glacial and fluvial reworking of cover sediments in the proglacial area throughout the Quaternary. Local rivers draining the Sudetic foreland transported this ...