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• A 725-year integrated offshore terrestrial varve chronology for southeastern Sweden suggests rapid ice retreat ~ 15 ka BP

  2021. Rachael S. Avery (et al.). Boreas 50 (2), 477-496

  Artikel

  The Swedish Varve Chronology is an unparalleled tool for linking the deglacial history of Sweden with associated palaeo-environmental change at an annual time scale, and it forms part of Sweden's cultural heritage. A full deglacial chronology connected to the present day does not yet exist; a notable gap is in southeasternmost Sweden, where few varved records are successfully connected to reconstruct ice-margin retreat. Deglaciation in southern Sweden covers both the climate transition to the Bølling warm period (similar to 14.7 ka BP) and the ice-margin transition from a subaqueous to terrestrial terminus. To facilitate investigations into the links between ice-margin dynamics and abrupt climate change, we revisited the varve chronologies of southern Sweden. We digitized unpublished records, reanalysed existing varve thickness records, and obtained and analysed new varve series both on land and offshore. This combined approach has enabled us to refine and extend the existing south coast chronology east and 78 km northwards. Our new Skåne-Småland chronology records 725 years of deglaciation, in addition to a younger floating chronology in parts. This chronology suggests that the glacial-lake terminating Fennoscandian Ice Sheet in southern Sweden initially retreated northwards at similar to 110-160 m a(-1) slowing to 60-70 m a(-1) near the palaeo-shoreline. Between today's mainland and the (now) island of Öland the retreat rates increase three- to fivefold. Ice-margin retreat was initially oriented towards the north (as along the south coast), but later pivoted towards the northwest, signifying a landward retreat of terrestrial 'Swedish' ice that became divorced from the Baltic Sea ice-sheet catchment. Our new 725-year-long varve thickness series reveals repeated multidecadal scale episodes of increased sedimentation. These likely signify phases of enhanced ice-sheet melting that repeat and persist throughout the deglaciation of Skåne-Småland.

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• Exceptions to bed-controlled ice sheet flow and retreat from glaciated continental margins worldwide

  2021. Sarah L. Greenwood (et al.). Science Advances 7 (3)

  Artikel

  Projections of ice sheet behavior hinge on how ice flow velocity evolves and the extent to which marine-based grounding lines are stable. Ice flow and grounding line retreat are variably governed by the coupling between the ice and underlying terrain. We ask to what degree catchment-scale bed characteristics determine ice flow and retreat, drawing on paleo-ice sheet landform imprints from 99 sites on continental shelves worldwide. We find that topographic setting has broadly steered ice flow and that the bed slope favors particular styles of retreat. However, we find exceptions to accepted rulesof behavior: Regional topographic highs are not always an impediment to fast ice flow, retreat may proceed in a controlled, steady manner on reverse slopes and, unexpectedly, the occurrence of ice streaming is not favored on a particular geological substrate. Furthermore, once grounding line retreat is under way, readvance is rarely observed regardless of regional bed characteristics.

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• BRITICE Glacial Map, version 2

  2018. Chris D. Clark (et al.). Boreas 47 (1), 11-27

  Artikel

  During the last glaciation, most of the British Isles and the surrounding continental shelf were covered by the British-Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS). An earlier compilation from the existing literature (BRITICE version 1) assembled the relevant glacial geomorphological evidence into a freely available GIS geodatabase and map (Clark etal. 2004: Boreas 33, 359). New high-resolution digital elevation models, of the land and seabed, have become available casting the glacial landform record of the British Isles in a new light and highlighting the shortcomings of the V.1 BRITICE compilation. Here we present a wholesale revision of the evidence, onshore and offshore, to produce BRITICE version 2, which now also includes Ireland. All published geomorphological evidence pertinent to the behaviour of the ice sheet is included, up to the census date of December 2015. The revised GIS database contains over 170000 geospatially referenced and attributed elements - an eightfold increase in information from the previous version. The compiled data include: drumlins, ribbed moraine, crag-and-tails, mega-scale glacial lineations, glacially streamlined bedrock (grooves, roches moutonnees, whalebacks), glacial erratics, eskers, meltwater channels (subglacial, lateral, proglacial and tunnel valleys), moraines, trimlines, cirques, trough-mouth fans and evidence defining ice-dammed lakes. The increased volume of features necessitates different map/database products with varying levels of data generalization, namely: (i) an unfiltered GIS database containing all mapping; (ii) a filtered GIS database, resolving data conflicts and with edits to improve geo-locational accuracy (available as GIS data and PDF maps); and (iii) a cartographically generalized map to provide an overview of the distribution and types of features at the ice-sheet scale that can be printed at A0 paper size at a 1:1250000 scale. All GIS data, the maps (as PDFs) and abibliography of all published sources are availablefor download from: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/geography/staff/clark_chris/britice

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• Diagnosing ice sheet grounding line stability from landform morphology

  2018. Lauren M. Simkins, Sarah L. Greenwood, John B. Anderson. The Cryosphere 12 (8), 2707-2726

  Artikel

  The resilience of a marine-based ice sheet is strongly governed by the stability of its grounding lines, which are in turn sensitive to ocean-induced melting, calving, and flotation of the ice margin. Since the grounding line is also a sedimentary environment, the constructional landforms that are built here may reflect elements of the processes governing this dynamic and potentially vulnerable environment. Here we analyse a large dataset (n = 6275) of grounding line landforms mapped on the western Ross Sea continental shelf from high-resolution geophysical data. The population is divided into two distinct morphotypes by their morphological properties: recessional moraines (consistently narrow, closely spaced, low amplitude, symmetric, and straight) and grounding zone wedges (broad, widely spaced, higher amplitude, asymmetric, sinuous, and highly variable). Landform morphotypes cluster with alike forms that transition abruptly between morphotypes both spatially and within a retreat sequence. Their form and distribution are largely independent of water depth, bed slope, and position relative to glacial troughs. Similarly, we find no conclusive evidence for morphology being determined by the presence or absence of an ice shelf. Instead, grounding zone wedge construction is favoured by a higher sediment flux and a longer-held grounding position. We propose two endmember modes of grounding line retreat: (1) an irregular mode, characterised by grounding zone wedges with longer standstills and accompanied by larger-magnitude retreat events, and (2) a steady mode, characterised by moraine sequences that instead represent more frequent but smaller-magnitude retreat events. We suggest that while sediment accumulation and progradation may prolong the stability of a grounding line position, progressive development of sinuosity in the grounding line due to spatially variable sediment delivery likely destabilises the grounding position by enhanced ablation, triggering large-magnitude retreat events. Here, the concept of stability is multifaceted and paradoxical, and neither mode can be characterised as marking fast or slow retreat. Diagnosing grounding line stability based on landform products should be considered for a wider geographic range, yet this large dataset of landforms prompts the need to better understand the sensitivity of marine-based grounding lines to processes and feedbacks governing retreat and what stability means in the context of future grounding line behaviour.

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• Holocene reconfiguration and readvance of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet

  2018. Sarah L. Greenwood (et al.). Nature Communications 9

  Artikel

  How ice sheets respond to changes in their grounding line is important in understanding ice sheet vulnerability to climate and ocean changes. The interplay between regional grounding line change and potentially diverse ice flow behaviour of contributing catchments is relevant to an ice sheet's stability and resilience to change. At the last glacial maximum, marine-based ice streams in the western Ross Sea were fed by numerous catchments draining the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Here we present geomorphological and acoustic stratigraphic evidence of ice sheet reorganisation in the South Victoria Land (SVL) sector of the western Ross Sea. The opening of a grounding line embayment unzipped ice sheet sub-sectors, enabled an ice flow direction change and triggered enhanced flow from SVL outlet glaciers. These relatively small catchments behaved independently of regional grounding line retreat, instead driving an ice sheet readvance that delivered a significant volume of ice to the ocean and was sustained for centuries.

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• Anatomy of a meltwater drainage system beneath the ancestral East Antarctic ice sheet

  2017. Lauren M. Simkins (et al.). Nature Geoscience 10 (9), 691-697

  Artikel

  Subglacial hydrology is critical to understand the behaviour of ice sheets, yet active meltwater drainage beneath contemporary ice sheets is rarely accessible to direct observation. Using geophysical and sedimentological data from the deglaciated western Ross Sea, we identify a palaeo-subglacial hydrological system active beneath an area formerly covered by the East Antarctic ice sheet. A long channel network repeatedly delivered meltwater to an ice stream grounding line and was a persistent pathway for episodic meltwater drainage events. Embayments within grounding-line landforms coincide with the location of subglacial channels, marking reduced sedimentation and restricted landform growth. Consequently, channelized drainage at the grounding line influenced the degree to which these landforms could provide stability feedbacks to the ice stream. The channel network was connected to upstream subglacial lakes in an area of geologically recent rifting and volcanism, where elevated heat flux would have produced sufficient basal melting to fill the lakes over decades to several centuries; this timescale is consistent with our estimates of the frequency of drainage events at the retreating grounding line. Based on these data, we hypothesize that ice stream dynamics in this region were sensitive to the underlying hydrological system.

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• The Bothnian Sea ice stream

  2017. Sarah L. Greenwood (et al.). Boreas 46 (2), 346-362

  Artikel

  The Gulf of Bothnia hosted a variety of palaeo-glaciodynamic environments throughout the growth and decay of the last Fennoscandian Ice Sheet, from the main ice-sheet divide to a major corridor of marine-and lacus-trine-based deglaciation. Ice streaming through the Bothnian and Baltic basins has been widely assumed, and the damming and drainage of the huge proglacial Baltic Ice Lake has been implicated in major regional and hemispheric climate changes. However, the dynamics of palaeo-ice flow and retreat in this large marine sector have until now been inferred only indirectly, from terrestrial, peripheral evidence. Recent acquisition of high-resolution multibeam bathymetry opens these basins up, for the first time, to direct investigation of their glacial footprint and palaeo-ice sheet behaviour. Here we report on a rich glacial landform record: in particular, a palaeo-ice stream pathway, abundant traces of high subglacial meltwater volumes, and widespread basal crevasse squeeze ridges. The Bothnian Sea ice stream is a narrow flow corridor that was directed southward through the basin to a terminal zone in the south-central Bothnian Sea. It was activated after initial margin retreat across the Aland sill and into the Bothnian basin, and the exclusive association of the ice-stream pathway with crevasse squeeze ridges leads us to interpret a short-lived stream event, under high extension, followed by rapid crevasse-triggered break-up. We link this event with a c. 150-year ice-rafted debris signal in peripheral varved records, at c. 10.67 cal. ka BP. Furthermore, the extensive glacifluvial system throughout the Bothnian Sea calls for considerable input of surface meltwater. We interpret strongly atmospherically driven retreat of this marine-based ice-sheet sector.

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• Controls on the early Holocene collapse of the Bothnian Sea Ice Stream

  2016. Caroline C. Clason (et al.). Journal of Geophysical Research - Earth Surface 121 (12), 2494-2513

  Artikel

  New high-resolution multibeam data in the Gulf of Bothnia reveal for the first time the subglacial environment of a Bothnian Sea Ice Stream. The geomorphological record suggests that increased meltwater production may have been important in driving rapid retreat of Bothnian Sea Ice during deglaciation. Here we apply a well-established, one-dimensional flow line model to simulate ice flow through the Gulf of Bothnia and investigate controls on retreat of the ice stream during the post-Younger Dryas deglaciation of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet. The relative influence of atmospheric and marine forcings are investigated, with the modeled ice stream exhibiting much greater sensitivity to surface melting, implemented through surface mass balance and hydrofracture-induced calving, than to submarine melting or relative sea level change. Such sensitivity is supported by the presence of extensive meltwater features in the geomorphological record. The modeled ice stream does not demonstrate significant sensitivity to changes in prescribed ice stream width or overall bed slope, but local variations in basal topography and ice stream width result in nonlinear retreat of the grounding line, notably demonstrating points of short-lived retreat slowdown on reverse bed slopes. Retreat of the ice stream was most likely governed by increased ice surface meltwater production, with the modeled retreat rate less sensitive to marine forcings despite the marine setting.

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• Past ice-sheet behaviour

  2016. Anna Ruth W. Halberstadt (et al.). The Cryosphere 10 (3), 1003-1020

  Artikel

  Studying the history of ice-sheet behaviour in the Ross Sea, Antarctica's largest drainage basin can improve our understanding of patterns and controls on marine-based ice-sheet dynamics and provide constraints for numerical ice-sheet models. Newly collected high-resolution multibeam bathymetry data, combined with two decades of legacy multibeam and seismic data, are used to map glacial landforms and reconstruct palaeo ice-sheet drainage. During the Last Glacial Maximum, grounded ice reached the continental shelf edge in the eastern but not western Ross Sea. Recessional geomorphic features in the western Ross Sea indicate virtually continuous back-stepping of the ice-sheet grounding line. In the eastern Ross Sea, well-preserved linear features and a lack of small-scale recessional landforms signify rapid lift-off of grounded ice from the bed. Physiography exerted a first-order control on regional ice behaviour, while sea floor geology played an important subsidiary role. Previously published deglacial scenarios for Ross Sea are based on low-spatial-resolution marine data or terrestrial observations; however, this study uses high-resolution basin-wide geomorphology to constrain grounding-line retreat on the continental shelf. Our analysis of retreat patterns suggests that (1) retreat from the western Ross Sea was complex due to strong physiographic controls on ice-sheet drainage; (2) retreat was asynchronous across the Ross Sea and between troughs; (3) the eastern Ross Sea largely deglaciated prior to the western Ross Sea following the formation of a large grounding-line embayment over Whales Deep; and (4) our glacial geomorphic reconstruction converges with recent numerical models that call for significant and complex East Antarctic ice sheet and West Antarctic ice sheet contributions to the ice flow in the Ross Sea.

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• Theoretical, contemporary observational and palaeo-perspectives on ice sheet hydrology

  2016. Sarah L. Greenwood (et al.). Earth-Science Reviews 155, 1-27

  Artikel

  Meltwater drainage through ice sheets has recently been a key focus of glaciological research due to its influence on the dynamics of ice sheets in a warming climate. However, the processes, topologies and products of ice sheet hydrology are some of the least understood components of both past and modem ice sheets. This is to some extent a result of a disconnect between the fields of theoretical, contemporary observational and palaeo-glaciology that each approach ice sheet hydrology from a different perspective and with different research objectives. With an increasing realisation of the potential of using the past to inform on the future of contemporary ice sheets, bridging the gaps in the understanding of ice sheet hydrology has become paramount. Here, we review the current state of knowledge about ice sheet hydrology from the perspectives of theoretical, observational and palaeo-glaciology. We then explore and discuss some of the key questions in understanding and interpretation between these research fields, including: 1) disagreement between the palaeo-record, glaciological theory and contemporary observations in the operational extent of channelised subglacial drainage and the topology of drainage systems; 2) uncertainty over the magnitude and frequency of drainage events associated with geomorphic activity; and 3) contrasts in scale between the three fields of research, both in a spatial and temporal context The main concluding points are that modem observations, modelling experiments and inferences from the palaeo-record indicate that drainage topologies may comprise a multiplicity of forms in an amalgam of drainage modes occurring in different contexts and at different scales. Drainage under high pressure appears to dominate at ice sheet scale and might in some cases be considered efficient; the sustainability of a particular drainage mode is governed primarily by the stability of discharge. To gain better understanding of meltwater drainage under thick ice, determining what drainage topologies are reached under high pressure conditions is of primary importance. Our review attests that the interconnectivity between research sub-disciplines in progressing the field is essential, both in interpreting the palaeo-record and in developing physical understanding of glacial hydrological processes and systems.

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• Multiple re-advances of a Lake Vättern outlet glacier during Fennoscandian Ice Sheet retreat, south-central Sweden

  2015. Sarah L. Greenwood (et al.). Boreas 44 (4), 619-637

  Artikel

  Lake Vättern represents a critical region geographically and dynamically in the deglaciation of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet. The outlet glacier that occupied the basin and its behaviour during ice-sheet retreat were key to the development and drainage of the Baltic Ice Lake, dammed just west of the basin, yet its geometry, extent, thickness, margin dynamics, timing and sensitivity to regional retreat forcing are rather poorly known. The submerged sediment archives of Lake Vättern represent a missing component of the regional Swedish deglaciation history. Newly collected geophysical data, including high-resolution multibeam bathymetry of the lake floor and seismic reflection profiles of southern Lake Vättern, are used here together with a unique 74-m sediment record recently acquired by drill coring, and with onshore LiDAR-based geomorphological analysis, to investigate the deglacial environments and dynamics in the basin and its terrestrial environs. Five stratigraphical units comprise a thick subglacial package attributed to the last glacial period (and probably earlier), and an overlying > 120-m deglacial sequence. Three distinct retreat-re-advance episodes occurred in southern Lake Vättern between the initial deglaciation and the Younger Dryas. In the most recent of these, ice overrode proglacial lake sediments and re-advanced from north of Visingsö to the southern reaches of the lake, where ice up to 400 m thick encroached on land in a lobate fashion, moulding crag-and-tail lineations and depositing till above earlier glacifluvial sediments. This event precedes the Younger Dryas, which our data reveal was probably restricted to north-central sectors of the basin. These dynamics, and their position within the regional retreat chronology, indicate a highly active ice margin during deglaciation, with retreat rates on average 175 m a(-1). The pronounced topography of the Vättern basin and its deep proglacial-dammed lake are likely to have encouraged the dynamic behaviour of this major Fennoscandian outlet glacier.

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• A community-based geological reconstruction of Antarctic Ice Sheet deglaciation since the Last Glacial Maximum

  2014. Michael J. Bentley (et al.). Quaternary Science Reviews 100, 1-9

  Artikel

  A robust understanding of Antarctic Ice Sheet deglacial history since the Last Glacial Maximum is important in order to constrain ice sheet and glacial-isostatic adjustment models, and to explore the forcing mechanisms responsible for ice sheet retreat. Such understanding can be derived from a broad range of geological and glaciological datasets and recent decades have seen an upsurge in such data gathering around the continent and Sub-Antarctic islands. Here, we report a new synthesis of those datasets, based on an accompanying series of reviews of the geological data, organised by sector. We present a series of timeslice maps for 20 ka, 15 ka, 10 ka and 5 ka, including grounding line position and ice sheet thickness changes, along with a clear assessment of levels of confidence. The reconstruction shows that the Antarctic Ice sheet did not everywhere reach the continental shelf edge at its maximum, that initial retreat was asynchronous, and that the spatial pattern of deglaciation was highly variable, particularly on the inner shelf. The deglacial reconstruction is consistent with a moderate overall excess ice volume and with a relatively small Antarctic contribution to meltwater pulse la. We discuss key areas of uncertainty both around the continent and by time interval, and we highlight potential priorities for future work. The synthesis is intended to be a resource for the modelling and glacial geological community.

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• Pattern and timing of retreat of the last British Irish ice sheet

  2012. Chris D. Clark (et al.). Quaternary Science Reviews 44, 112-146

  Artikel

  During the last glacial the ice sheet that subsumed most of Britain, Ireland and the North Sea attained its maximum extent by 27 ka BP and with an ice volume sufficient to raise global sea level by ca 2.5 m when it melted. We reconstruct the demise of this British-Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS) and present palaeo-glaciological maps of retreat stages between 27 and 15 ka BR The whole land area was investigated using remote sensing data and we present maps of moraines, meltwater channels, eskers, and drumlins and a methodology of how to interpret and bring them together. For the continental shelf, numerous large moraines were discovered recording an extensive pattern of retreat stretching from SW Ireland to the Shetland Isles. From an integration of this new mapping of glacial geomorphology (>26,000 landforms) with previously published evidence, compiled in the BRITICE database, we derive a pattern of retreat for the whole BIIS. We review and compile relevant dates (881 examples) that constrain the timing of retreat. All data are held within a Geographic Information System (GIS), and are deciphered to produce a best-estimate of the combined pattern and timing of retreat. Pattern information reveals an ice sheet mainly comprised of a shelf-parallel configuration from SW Ireland to NE Scotland but it spread far enough to the south to incorporate outlying ice domes over Wales, the Lake District and Kerry. Final disintegration was into a number of separate ice caps, rather than reduction as a single mass, and paradoxically, retreat was not always back to high ground. By 23 ka BP ice withdrew along its northern boundaries at the same time as the southern margins were expanding, including transient ice streaming down the Irish Sea and advances of lobes in the Cheshire Basin, Vale of York and east coast of England. Ice divides migrated south. By 19 ka the ice sheet was in crisis with widespread marine-based ice losses, particularly in the northern North Sea and the Irish Sea. Considerable dynamic-thinning occurred during this phase. Final collapse of all marine sectors occurred by 17 ka BP and with most margins beginning to back-step onshore. Disintegration of the North Sea 'ice bridge' between Britain and Norway remains loosely constrained in time but the possibility of catastrophic collapse of this sector is highlighted. The North Channel and Irish Sea ice streams had finally cleaved the ice sheet into separate Irish and Scottish ice sheets by 16 ka BP. Rates of ice loss were found to vary widely over space and time (e.g., 65-260 km(3) per year). The role of ice streams and calving losses of marine-based sectors are examined. Retreat rates of up to ca 150 ma(-1) were found for some ice stream margins. That large parts (2/3) of the BIIS were marine-based, drained by ice streams, and possibly with fringing ice shelves in places, makes it a useful analogue for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). This is especially so because the BIIS deglaciated in response to rising temperatures and a rising sea level (driven by melting of other ice masses) which are the current forcings that might cause collapse of the WAIS. Our reconstruction, when viewed from the opposite perspective, documents when fresh land became exposed for exploitation by plants, animals and Man, and records for how long such land has been available for soil and geochemical development and ecological succession.

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• Ice-flow switching and East/West Antarctic Ice Sheet roles in glaciation of the western Ross Sea

  2012. Sarah L. Greenwood (et al.). Geological Society of America Bulletin 124 (11-12), 1736-1749

  Artikel

  The long-term behavior of the East and West Antarctic Ice Sheets, and their respective responses to forcing provide essential context for assessment of modern dynamic changes in ice-flow regimes and ice-sheet and shelf margins. The western Ross Sea discharges ice from both the East and West Antarctic Ice Sheets, and the paleoglacial record from this region is therefore valuable in unraveling their long-term behavior. New, high-resolution multibeam bathymetric data reveal snapshots of well-preserved glacial landforms on the seafloor around Ross Island and McMurdo Sound. Glacial lineations, grounding zone wedges, draped recessional moraines, and meltwater channels record a series of different ice-flow events in the region, contradictions between which require major phases of ice-flow reorganization. From the glacial geomorphology, we reconstruct a four-stage model of ice-flow evolution for the last glacial cycle, consisting of: (1) northeastward flow into the Ross Sea from McMurdo Sound; (2) westward flow from the Ross Sea, around Ross Island, and onto the Victoria Land coast and coastal seafloor trough; (3) a deglacial phase of ice-sheet thinning, minor shifts in flow, and grounding line retreat into McMurdo Sound; and (4) grounding line pinning on Ross Island during regional retreat, uncoupling of a remnant Ross Island ice cap, and local oscillation of Victoria Land outlet glaciers. We find that East Antarctic Ice Sheet ice discharge had a strong influence on ice-flow geometry in this part of the Ross Sea during the last glacial stage, but that it was not necessarily in phase with the behavior of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It is similarly evident that the ice streams that drained the Ross Sea over the continental shelf at the Last Glacial Maximum did not all operate synchronously, and exerted different drawdown power at different times. Finally, we conclude that Ross Island acts as an important pinning point in the Ross Sea ice-sheet-shelf system, stabilizing grounding line retreat and encouraging lasting ice-shelf development.

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• The sensitivity of subglacial bedform size and distribution to substrate lithological control.

  2010. Sarah L. Greenwood, Chris D. Clark. Sedimentary Geology 232, 130-144

  Artikel

  The varied nature of a glacial substrate has often been invoked to account for the varied distribution, arrangement and morphological expression of subglacial bedforms. The ease and rate of sediment production from the bedrock substrate, and the rheological, mechanical and hydraulic properties of the resultant subglacial sediment layer have been argued, in certain samples or settings, to account for the local-to-regional distribution of bedforms and bedform types, and varying morphological expression such as size, shape, elongation, or spatial arrangement. From locally coherent observations and relationships it is tempting to extrapolate such patterns to express a more fundamental lithological control on subglacial bedform properties and formation. Here we use a large, systematically compiled dataset (> 30,000 subglacial bedforms inscribed by the Irish Ice Sheet) to explore potential lithological controls upon subglacial bedform distribution and morphological expression. We expect any lithological control upon form, size or distribution to be expressed through a spatial correlation between bedform properties and those of the bed lithology; we extract bedform morphometric and distribution statistics and underlying lithology data from datasets held in a geographic information system for comparative analyses. At ice sheet scale, i.e. considering our whole bedform population, we find no apparent relationship between the lithology of either bedrock or till substrate and bedform occurrence, density of arrangement, or size. Regional to local examples do, in contrast, exhibit some coincident changes in substrate and bedform expression. These are typically manifest as an abrupt shortening or lengthening of drumlins at a lithological boundary, superimposed upon more gradual, regional trends. However, not all local variability observed in the bedform population can be attributed to a lithological driver and, where it can be inferred, lithological control is often in tandem with, or subordinate to, other drivers such as topographic setting or ice dynamics. We propose a hierarchy of controls upon bedform form and distribution, strongly coupled to spatial scale: lithological differences can modulate local scale form and expression but bedform incidence and properties are primarily governed by ice sheet scale glaciological patterns and drivers. Only under certain (unknown) conditions at a local scale is the bedforming process sensitive to the lithological properties of the bed.

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