A high‐resolution record of Lateglacial and early Holocene marine sediments from southwestern Sweden; with special emphasis on environmental changes close to the Pleistocene‐Holocene transition and the influence of fresh water from the Baltic basin

Abstract

AbstractA high‐resolution study of a marine depositional record (43 m long), dated by accelerator mass spectrometry, from Göteborg (Gothenburg), southwestern Sweden, shows biostratigraphical and sedimentological changes of environmental significance during the Lateglacial and early Holocene. High accumulation rates are recorded from the onset of the deglaciation of the area, ca. 13 500 yr BP, until 10 300 yr BP, by which time approximately 100 m of marine sediments were deposited. The early Holocene is represented by 10 m only of sediment.The influence on the Skagerrak‐Kattegat coastal area of the dramatic, final drainage of the Baltic Ice Lake, at 10 300 yr BP, is re‐evaluated. Its impact on the distal Swedish west coast was limited and sediments that were previously related to this drainage are reinterpreted. Here, it is suggested they reflect resuspension and redeposition of sediments from the large inland Lake Vänern basin between ca. 9500 and 9000 yr BP. At 10 200 yr BP a general climatic change and a sudden incursion of warm and saline Atlantic water into the Norwegian Sea occurred and the Skagerrak altered environmental conditions, with more temperate bottom‐water conditions in the investigation area.