Search

The Eurasian ice sheet complex (EISC) was the third largest ice mass during the Last Glacial Maximum with a span of over 4500 km and responsible for around 20 m of eustatic sea-level lowering. Whilst recent terrestrial and marine empirical insights have improved understanding of the chronology, pattern and rates of retreat of this vast ice sheet, a concerted attempt to model the deglaciation of the EISC honouring these new constraints is conspicuously lacking. Here, we apply a first-order, thermomechanical ice sheet model, validated against a diverse suite of empirical data, to investigate the retreat of the EISC after 23 ka BP, directly extending the work of Patton et al. (2016) who modelled the build-up to its maximum extent. Retreat of the ice sheet complex was highly asynchronous, reflecting contrasting regional sensitivities to climate forcing, oceanic influence, and internal dynamics. Most rapid retreat was experienced across the Barents Sea sector after 17.8 ka BP when this marine-based ice sheet disintegrated at a rate of ∼670 gigatonnes per year (Gt a −1 ) through enhanced calving and interior dynamic thinning, driven by oceanic/atmospheric warming and exacerbated by eustatic sea-level rise. From 14.9 to 12.9 ka BP the EISC lost on average 750 Gt a −1 , peaking at rates >3000 Gt a −1 , roughly equally partitioned between surface melt and dynamic losses, and potentially contributing up to 2.5 m to global sea-level rise during Meltwater Pulse 1A. Independent glacio-isostatic modelling constrained by an extensive inventory of relative sea-level change corroborates our ice sheet loading history of the Barents Sea sector. Subglacial conditions were predominately temperate during deglaciation, with over 6000 subglacial lakes predicted along with an extensive subglacial drainage network. Moreover, the maximum EISC and its isostatic footprint had a profound impact on the proglacial hydrological network, forming the Fleuve Manche mega-catchment which had an area of ∼2.5 × 10 6 km 2 and drained the present day Vistula, Elbe, Rhine and Thames rivers through the Seine Estuary. During the Bølling/Allerød oscillation after c. 14.6 ka BP, two major proglacial lakes formed in the Baltic and White seas, buffering meltwater pulses from eastern Fennoscandia through to the Younger Dryas when these massive proglacial freshwater lakes flooded into the North Atlantic Ocean. Deglaciation temporarily abated during the Younger Dryas stadial at 12.9 ka BP, when remnant ice across Svalbard, Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Fennoscandia and Scotland experienced a short-lived but dynamic re-advance. The final stage of deglaciation converged on present day ice cover around the Scandes mountains and the Barents Sea by 8.7 ka BP, although the phase-lagged isostatic recovery still continues today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS) covered most of British Columbia and southern Yukon Territory at the local Last Glacial Maximum (lLGM) during Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 2. However, its subsequent demise is not well understood, particularly at high elevations east of its ocean-terminating margin. We present 10Be exposure ages from two high-elevation sites in southern and central British Columbia that help constrain the time of initial deglaciation at these sites. We sampled granodiorite erratics at elevations of 2126-2230 m a.s.l. in the Marble Range and 1608-1785 m a.s.l. in the Telkwa Range at the western margin of the Interior Plateau. The erratics at both sites are near ice-marginal meltwater channels that delineate the local ice surface slope and thus the configuration of the ice sheet during deglaciation. The locations of the erratics and their relations to meltwater channels ensure that the resulting 10Be ages date CIS deglaciation and not the retreat of local montane glaciers. Our sample sites emerged above the surface of the CIS as its divide migrated westward from the Interior Plateau to the axis of the Coast Mountains. Two of the four samples from the summit area of the Marble Range yielded apparent exposure ages of 14.0 ± 0.7 and 15.2 ± 0.8 ka. These ages are 1.8-3.0 ka younger than the well-established lLGM age of ca 17 ka for the Puget lobe of the CIS in Washington State; they are 1.7 ka younger than the lLGM age for the Puget lobe if a snow-shielding correction to their uncertainty-weighted mean age is applied. The other two samples yielded much older apparent exposure ages (20.6 ± 1.4 and 33.0 ± 1.5 ka), indicating the presence of inherited isotopes. Four samples collected from the summit area of the Telkwa Range in the Hazelton Mountains yielded well clustered apparent exposure ages of 10.1 ± 0.6, 10.2 ± 0.7, 10.4 ± 0.5, and 11.5 ± 1.1 ka. Significant present-day snow cover introduces a large uncertainty in the apparent exposure ages from this site. A snow-shielding correction based on present-day snow cover data increases the uncertainty-weighted mean exposure age of the Telkwa Range erratics to 12.4 ± 0.7 ka, consistent with deglacial 14C ages from areas near sea level to the west. Our exposure ages show a thinning of the southern portion of the CIS shortly after the lLGM and persistence of a remnant mountain ice cap in the central Coast Mountains into the Younger Dryas Chronozone. Our data also show that the summit area of the Marble Range was ice-covered during the lLGM. The presence of an ice body of considerable dimension in north-central British Columbia until, or possibly even after, the Younger Dryas highlights the need for geomorphological and geochronological studies of the ice dispersal centre over the Skeena Mountains in northwest British Columbia and the need for better understanding of the response of the CIS to Lateglacial climate fluctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]