Distribution of Late Pleistocene ice-dammed lakes and ice-free oases on Svalbard

Demidov V.E.¹, Terekhov A.V.¹

DISTRIBUTION OF LATE PLEISTOCENE ICE-DAMMED LAKES AND ICE-FREE OASES ON SVALBARD IN THE ERA OF DEGRADATION OF THE WEICHSELIAN GLACIATION

Relief and Quaternary deposits of the Arctic, Subarctic and North-West Russia. Issue 11.

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doi: 10.24412/2687-1092-2024-11-87-94

¹Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia

Abstract. The analysis of the present-day distribution of ice-dammed lakes on Svalbard shows that they often form when a glacier branch receives less accumulation and melts faster than the main glacier body. This pattern should have been repeated during the degradation of the Weichselian ice sheet. Ice-dammed freshwater lakes would form in valleys where two adjoining glaciation basins had a sharp difference in the mass balance due to differences in height, valley configuration or position relative to the precipitation source. Such difference today is observed in several regions of Svalbard and there are at least 4 valleys in Nordenskjold land where large ice-dammed lakes and “wet-valley” oases must have been formed during the deglaciation of the Late Weichselian ice sheet and where lacustrine conditions changed to marine only after the damming glacier retreat. Thus lacustrine or glacio-lacustrine sediments (with the addition of clastic materials from lake icebergs) should underlay marine fjord deltaic strata in lower Grondalen, Gronfjorddalen, Sassendalen and Kjellstromdalen as well as few other valleys of Nordenskjold land. Some of the ridges in lower parts of Svalbard valleys may represent Late Weichselian marginal moraines of the damming glaciers. During the melting of the Weichselian glaciation many dozens of dammed lakes must have existed simultaneously, some of which were significantly larger than the modern ones. Corresponding deposits of lakes and oases will have carbon dates exceeding full deglaciation.

Keywords: glacier degradation, last glacial maximum, glacial mass balance, lacustrine sediments, Quaternary, Weichselian glaciation

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Cite this article:

Demidov V.E., Terekhov A.V. Distribution of Late Pleistocene ice-dammed lakes and ice-free oases on Svalbard // Relief and Quaternary deposits of the Arctic, Subarctic and North-West Russia. 2024. Issue 11. P. 87-94. doi: 10.24412/2687-1092-2024-11-87-94