Postglacial relative sea-level change and stratigraphy of raised coastal basins on Kola Peninsula, northwest Russia

Abstract

A relative sea-level curve for the Holocene is constructed for Polyarny on the Kola Peninsula, northwest Russia. The curve is based on 18 radiocarbon dates of isolation contacts, identified from lithological and diatomological criteria, in nine lake basins situated between 12 and 57 m a.s.l. Most of the lakes show a conformable, regressive I–II–III (marine–transitional–freshwater) facies succession, indicating a postglacial history comprising an early (10,000–9000 radiocarbon years BP) phase of rapid, glacio-isostatically induced emergence (∼5 cm year −1) and a later phase (after 7000 years BP,) having a moderate rate of emergence (<0.5 cm year −1). Three lakes together record a phase of very low rate of emergence or slight sea-level rise at a level of ∼27 m a.s.l., between 8500 and 7000 years BP, which correlates with the regional Tapes transgression. Pollen stratigraphy in the highest lake shows that the area was deglaciated before the Younger Dryas and that previously reconstructed Younger Dryas glacier margins along the north Kola coast lie too far north.