Helena Alexanderson
Professor
Depositional history of the North Taymyr ice-marginal zone, Siberia - a landsystem approach
Author
Summary, in English
The sediment-landform associations of the northern Taymyr Peninsula in Arctic Siberia tell a tale of ice sheets advancing from the Kara Sea shelf and inundating the peninsula, probably three times during the Weichselian. In each case the ice sheet had a margin frozen to its bed and an interior moving over a deforming bed. The North Taymyr ice-marginal zone (NTZ) comprises ice-marginal and supraglacial landsystems dominated by thrust-block moraines 2-3 km wide and large-scale deformation of sediments and ice. Large areas are still underlain by remnant glacier ice and a supraglacial landscape with numerous ice-walled lakes and kames is forming even today. The proglacial landsystem is characterised by subaqueous (e.g. deltas) or terrestrial (e.g. sandar) environments, depending on location/altitude and time of formation. Dating results (OSL, C-14) indicate that the NTZ was initiated ca. 80 kyr BP during the retreat of the Early Weichselian ice sheet and that it records the maximum limit of a Middle Weichselian glaciation (ca. 65 kyr BP). During both these events, proglacial lakes were dammed by the ice sheets. Part of the NTZ was occupied by a thin Late Weichselian ice sheet (20-12 kyr BP), resulting in subaerial proglacial drainage. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.
Department/s
- Quaternary Sciences
Publishing year
2002
Language
English
Pages
361-382
Publication/Series
Journal of Quaternary Science
Volume
17
Issue
4
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Topic
- Geology
Keywords
- glaciation
- ice-marginal zone
- landsystem
- Weichselian
- Siberia
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1099-1417