Spatially continuous landform driven reconstruction of marginal retreat dynamics of the Southern and Eastern sectors of the last Fennoscandian Ice Sheet, beyond the hard bedrock shield

Abstract

<p>The last Fennoscandian Ice Sheet provides a valuable scenario for testing and evaluating numerical ice sheet models with a large amassed database of landform, stratigraphic and dated evidence of ice sheet activity. In contrast to the core shield area (Norway, Sweden and Finland) of the ice sheet, fewer investigations beyond the shield (Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Russia) attempt to gather local to regional information into ice sheet wide syntheses of ice margin and lobe dynamics. For example, many detailed investigations across these countries remain disconnected with adjacent areas applying varying methods and naming schemes making it difficult to reconcile at the ice sheet scale.</p><p>Here we present a systematic and spatially coherent reconstruction of ice margin dynamics for the whole southern and eastern margin, from Denmark to arctic Russia. The landform to reconstruction method allows for a consistent approach to be applied to the 1.2+ million km<sup>2</sup> mapping area despite a wide range of glaciological landform and data variability (DEM vary in resolution from 0.4 m-25 m) found in the 1.2+ million km<sup>2</sup> study area. We propose this reconstruction as a first-order framework of ice marginal dynamics that can be used to develop second-order and more detailed knowledge of fluctuations when more closely connected to stratigraphic and geochronometric investigations. Rather than a simple concentric retreat pattern often envisaged the landform record and its frequent overprinting forces a solution of complexity with lobe interactions and readvances.</p>