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Highlights • Increased glacial sedimentation rates do not generate sufficient overpressure to trigger a landslide. • Simulated overpressures for different sedimentation scenarios do not significantly differ. • A glacimarine layer underneath rapidly-deposited sediments is important for overpressure build-up. • An earthquake of M6.9 or larger at a short distance from the Tampen Slide headwall could have triggered the Tampen Slide. Abstract Trough mouth fans are environments characterized by high sediment supply during glacial stages and the occurrence of large-scale instabilities. The geological record indicates that several of these environments have failed repeatedly resulting in large submarine landslides. The roles of sedimentation rate, weak layers, glacial loading and unloading as well as seismic activity on triggering megaslides in trough-mouth-fan systems is still unclear. A better understanding of the preconditioning factors, triggers and consequences of these landslides is crucial due to the hazard they pose to coastal communities and offshore industries. In this paper, we focus on the North Sea Trough Mouth Fan, which is the result of massive glacial sediment input delivered to the shelf edge through the Norwegian Channel, southeast Nordic Seas margin. The Tampen Slide, one of several large paleo-landslides that have happened within the North Sea Trough Mouth Fan, took place at c. 130 ka (end of MIS 6), and removed an estimated 1800 km3 of sediment. Here, we use boundary conditions from the Tampen Slide and 2D Finite Element Modeling (Abaqus software from Simulia) to evaluate the effects of variations in sedimentation rates as well as sediment properties on the generation of excess pore pressure, fluid flow, and slope stability along the axis of the trough-mouth-fan system. The model domain, 40 km in length and 2 km in height, is dominated by glacigenic debris flows and glacimarine sediment deposits. We use geotechnical data measured on samples of glacigenic and glacimarine sediment deposits from the nearby Ormen Lange gas field area to constrain the model. We evaluate the stability of the slope under various scenarios, including constant sediment loading, episodic changes in sedimentation rates and abrupt pulses in sediment delivery for a 61 kyr period (MIS 6). The models show that increased sedimentation rates during glacial stages do not generate sufficient excess pore pressure to set off a landslide. Furthermore, the simulated overpressures for the different sedimentation scenarios do not significantly differ at the end of the model runs. The results also highlight the importance of a basal glacimarine sediment layer underneath the rapidly-deposited sediments for the build-up of overpressure. Consequently, this glacimarine sediment layer has the inherited potential to act as a weak layer facilitating instability. However, as overpressure due to sediment deposition alone does not result in slope failure, we couple the preconditioned slope with earthquake ground shaking. Based on attenuation models, an earthquake of approximately M6.9 or larger at a short distance from the Tampen Slide headwall could have triggered the landslide. Therefore, we suggest glacial sedimentation and a glacimarine sediment layer to represent preconditioning factors, and seismic shaking as the final trigger mechanism for the Tampen Slide, i.e. similar to the situation that lead to the development of the Storegga Slide in the same area.

We present geomorphological evidence of large, previously undocumented, early Holocene ice-dammed lakes in the Scandinavian Mountains of northwestern Sweden. The lakes extents indicate that the last remnants of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet were located east of the mountain range. Some early pioneering works have presented similar reconstructions, whereas more recently published reconstructions place the last ice remnants in the high mountains of Sarek. Using high-resolution airborne LiDAR data we have mapped a large number of hitherto undocumented shorelines in some of the main valleys within the northern Scandinavian mountain range. Our results indicate that a larger system of ice-dammed lakes existed in this region than previously thought. The lakes were dammed between the main water divide to the west and the retreating ice sheet margin to the east. The shorelines dip towards the northwest with gradients ranging from 0.5 to 0.4 m/km, from the oldest to the youngest. Further, we have compiled Lateglacial and Holocene shoreline data along the Norwegian coast and from within the Baltic Sea basin and reconstructed the isostatic uplift along a 1400 km long northwest-southeast transect from the Norwegian Sea to Lake Ladoga. By comparing the measured ice-dammed lake shoreline gradients to the dated marine shorelines, we infer that the lakes may have existed for several centuries following 10.2 cal ka BP. We also describe large deposits and extensive erosive features, which demonstrate that a catastrophic glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) took place eastward along the Pite River Valley. Based on cross-cutting relations to raised shorelines developed in the early Holocene Ancylus Lake (Baltic Sea basin) we conclude that the flood and thus the final phase of deglaciation took place within the time interval 10.3–9.9 cal ka BP. publishedVersion

We present multibeam swath bathymetric surveys of the major fjords surrounding the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia to characterise the glacial geomorphology and to identify the relative timings and extent of past glacial advance and retreat. Bathymetry data revealed a range of glacial features including terminal, retreat and truncated moraines, deep (distal) outer and shallow (proximal) inner basins and cross shelf troughs. These provide evidence of glacial advance and retreat through several glacial cycles. A near consistent pattern of large scale submarine geomorphological features was observed in the different fjords suggesting a similar response of margins of the island ice cap to past climate forcing. A relative chronology based on the relationships between the submarine features with their radiocarbon and cosmogenic isotope dated terrestrial counterparts suggests that widely observed inner basin moraines date from the last major glacial advance or Last Glacial Maximum, while deep basin moraines may date from an earlier (pre-LGM) more extensive glaciation, which we speculate corresponds to MIS6. On the sides of the deep basins a series of truncated moraines show ice advance positions from preceding glacial periods. The cross shelf troughs, and mid-trough moraines are interpreted as the product of much more extensive glaciations that predate the fjord geomorphology mapped here, thus possibly older than MIS6. This hypothesis would suggest that South Georgia followed a glacial history similar to that of central Patagonia (46°S) where a series of Pleistocene glaciations (of MIS 20 and younger) extended beyond LGM limits, with the most extensive glacial advance occurring at c. 1.1 Ma.

The Black Sea was an inland lake during the last ice age and its sediments are an excellent potential source of information on Eurasian climate change, showing linkages between regionally and globally recognized millennial-scale climate events of the last deglaciation. Here, we detail changes from the last glacial maximum (LGM) through the transition to an anoxic marginal sea using isotopic (strontium and oxygen) and trace element (Sr/Ca) ratios in carbonate shells, which record changing input sources and hydrologic conditions in the basin and surrounding region. Sr isotope records show two prominent peaks between ∼18 and 16 ka BP cal, reflecting anomalous sedimentation associated with meltwater from disintegrating Eurasian ice sheets that brought Black Sea level to its spill point. Following a sharp drop in Sr isotope ratios back toward glacial values, two stages of inorganic calcite precipitation accompanied increasing oxygen isotope ratios and steady Sr isotope ratios. These calcite peaks are separated by an interval in which the geochemical proxies trend back toward glacial values. The observed changes reflect negative water balance and lake level decline during relatively warm periods (Bolling–Allerod and Preboreal) and increasing river input/less evaporation, resulting in higher lake levels, during the intervening cold period (the Younger Dryas). A final shift to marine values in Sr and oxygen isotope ratios at 9.4 ka BP cal corresponds to connection with the global ocean, and marks the onset of sedimentation on the Black Sea continental shelf. This date for the marine incursion is earlier than previously suggested based on the appearance of euryhaline fauna and the onset of sapropel formation in the deep basin.