Chapter 6 - Glacial landscapes of Northern Central Europe

Abstract

The northern region of Central Europe was occupied by a sector of the European Ice Sheet Complex (EISC) during the Last Glacial Cycle (LGC, Weichselian). This region is a gently undulated part of the Central European lowlands. It is subdivided into large natural and geographic units with a maritime influence, but increasing continentality inland and to the east. The Teisseyre-Tornquist’s tectonic zone is the most important geological boundary in Central Europe, running NW–SW in Poland and is composed of a system of fractures that separate the East European Precambrian Craton from the Western European Palaeozoic Platform. In the area affected by the EISC during the LGC, the Quaternary cover is unevenly distributed. The landscape is largely dominated by the Late Weichselian flat and hummocky morainic uplands, subglacial tunnel valleys, drumlins, eskers, kames, end moraines, ice-marginal channels, outwash fans and plains, dead-ice ridges, and kettle holes, produced by the EISC operating on unconsolidated sediments. The maximum extent of the last EISC is expressed by a significant boundary within the landscape that separates fresh and conspicuous glacial landforms in the north from degraded and periglacially modified glacial landforms of earlier glaciations in the south. The area, partly located outside the LGC limit, is dissected by the Głogów–Baruth, the Warsaw–Berlin, and the Toruń–Eberswalde ice-marginal spillways that merge in the vicinity of Berlin.