Quaternary glaciations of northern Europe

Abstract

This paper presents the outcome of a workshop, held in Berlin in February 2009, concerned with current research on the glacial history of northern Europe, including the British Isles. The methodologies presently used to resolve this topic are outlined. Particular attention is given to new analytical methods deriving from high resolution remote imaging of glacial terrain both on land and on the sea-bed, key new stratigraphic sections, higher resolution results from conventional geochronological methods like radiocarbon and more recently developed technologies such as luminescence and cosmogenic radionuclide dating. The relationships between the results derived from these two methods are discussed in further detail along with possible explanations for these differences. An outline of a ‘most likely’ glacial history of the Scandinavian and British and Irish Ice Sheets is presented along with possible links to global climate change as represented by the marine isotope (MIS) record. Tentative evidence for glaciation is identified in MIS 22, 16, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4 and 2 and correlations of ‘phases’ within the Last Glaciation are also explored for both the Scandinavian and British and Irish Ice Sheets. The results show that the character and extent of glaciation in different parts of the region are not synchronous and much more geochronological work is required before regional correlations can be established with confidence.