Late‐Pleistocene tidewater glaciers and glaciomarine sequences from north County Mayo, Republic of Ireland

Abstract

AbstractLate‐Pleistocene deposits in north County Mayo were deposited in three main glacigenic environments. 1. Drumlins and basal tills were formed when ice moved from the Irish lowlands and local mountain catchments into Donegal Bay. 2. Gilbert‐type deltas accumulated up to 80m I.O.D. on the lowlands and subaqueous moraines formed across minor valleys when marine‐based ice grounded inland. 3. A thick drape of fossiliferous glaciomarine mud along the coastal fringe was deposited from meltwater plumes and by ice‐rafting immediately outside of these ice limits. The muds contain an Elphidium clavatum‐dominated, low‐diversity microfauna which is characteristic of cold‐water conditions adjacent to glacier termini. Valves of Macoma calcarea from the mud have been 14C dated at 16940 ± 120 and 17300 ± 100 BP.The high‐level delta complex was deposited from tidewater glaciers in a peripheral depression adjacent to the drumlin ice limits of north County Mayo. Although the field evidence cannot be used to determine former sea level history with any accuracy, it poses general problems for sea level history and isostatic effects of the last major ice sheet in the west of Ireland. Raised glaciomarine sequences commonly occur in close association with drumlin ice limits elsewhere in Ireland and represent marine transgressions prior to glacial unloading. It is suggested that the magnitudes and patterns of crustal depression are greater and geometrically more complex at the margins of ice sheets in Ireland than hitherto realised.