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Unknown basal characteristics limit our ability to simulate the subglacial hydrology of rapidly thinning contemporary ice sheets. Subglacial water is typically conceptualised as being routed through either distributed, inefficient, and high pressure systems, or channelised, efficient, and low-pressure systems, transitioning between the two as a function of discharge. Sediment-based landforms generated beneath Pleistocene ice sheets, together with detailed digital elevation models, offer a valuable means of parameterising and testing models of subglacial hydrology. However, previous work using geomorphology to inform modelling has concentrated on landforms relating to channelised drainage (e.g., eskers) while using inherently channelised models unable to capture transitions in drainage state. Landscapes relating to the distributed drainage system, and the hypothesised transitional zone of drainage between distributed and channelised drainage modes have therefore been largely ignored. To address this, we use the Glacier Drainage System model (GlaDS), a 2D finite element model capable of capturing the transition between distributed and channelised drainage, to explore the genesis of 'murtoos', a distinctive triangular landform found in murtoo fields throughout Finland and Sweden. Murtoos are hypothesised to form 40–60 km from the former Fennoscandian ice margin at the onset of channelised drainage where water pressure is at or exceeds ice overburden pressure. Concentrating within a specific ice lobe of the former Fennoscandian Ice Sheet and parameterised using digital elevation models with a simulated former ice surface geometry, we carried out a range of sensitivity testing to explore murtoo genesis and drainage transitions beneath the palaeo ice sheet. Our modelling supports many of the predictions for murtoo origin, including the location of water pressures equal to ice overburden, the onset of channelised drainage, and the predicted water depths in terrain surrounding murtoo fields. Modelled channels also closely match the general spacing, direction and complexity of eskers and mapped meltwater routes. Our results demonstrate that examining palaeo basal topography alongside subglacial hydrology model outputs holds promise for mutually beneficial analyses of palaeo and contemporary ice sheets to assess the controls of hydrology on ice dynamics and subglacial landform evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unknown basal characteristics limit our ability to simulate the subglacial hydrology of rapidly thinning contemporary ice sheets. Subglacial water is typically conceptualised as being routed through either distributed, inefficient, and high-pressure systems, or channelised, efficient, and low-pressure systems, transitioning between the two as a function of discharge. Sediment-based landforms generated beneath Pleistocene ice sheets, together with detailed digital elevation models, offer a valuable means of parameterising and testing models of subglacial hydrology. However, previous work using geomorphology to inform modelling has concentrated on landforms relating to channelised drainage (e.g., eskers) while using inherently channelised models unable to capture transitions in drainage state. Landscapes relating to the distributed drainage system, and the hypothesised transitional zone of drainage between distributed and channelised drainage modes have therefore been largely ignored. To address this, we use the Glacier Drainage System model (GlaDS), a 2D finite element model capable of capturing the transition between distributed and channelised drainage, to explore the genesis of 'murtoos', a distinctive triangular landform found in murtoo fields throughout Finland and Sweden. Murtoos are hypothesised to form 40-60 km from the former Fennoscandian ice margin at the onset of channelised drainage where water pressure is at or exceeds ice overburden pressure. Concentrating within a specific ice lobe of the former Fennoscandian Ice Sheet and parameterised using digital elevation models with a simulated former ice surface geometry, we carried out a range of sensitivity testing to explore murtoo genesis and drainage transitions beneath the palaeo ice sheet. Our modelling supports many of the predictions for murtoo origin, including the location of water pressures equal to ice overburden, the onset of channelised drainage, and the predicted water depths in terrain surrounding murtoo fields. Modelled channels also closely match the general spacing, direction and complexity of eskers and mapped meltwater routes. Our results demonstrate that examining palaeo basal topography alongside subglacial hydrology model outputs holds promise for mutually beneficial analyses of palaeo and contemporary ice sheets to assess the controls of hydrology on ice dynamics and subglacial landform evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deglaciation patterns of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet in the Salpausselkä zone, southern Finland were studied. Digital elevation models (DEM/LiDAR‐imageries) were used to map and categorize glacifluvial formations of the study area, and evidence for ice re‐advance and retreat phases and their extent across the Younger Dryas Salpausselkä zone was collected. The results suggest that the Finnish Lake District Ice Lobe, located in SE Finland, retreated a minimum of 60 km north of the proximal side of the present First Salpausselkä ridge prior to the Younger Dryas, most probably during the Allerød interstadial (c. 13 900–12 700 years ago). This retreat phase was followed by a re‐advance after which the First Salpausselkä was formed (maximum age 13 300±900 years ago) in front of the Finnish Lake District Ice Lobe's ice margin. Subsequently, ice retreated further north and the Second Salpausselkä in front of the Finnish Lake District Ice Lobe margin was formed, according to OSL‐age determinations between 11 500 and 12 000 years ago. Previous research indicates that a similar retreat and re‐advance event to that of the Finnish Lake District Ice Lobe did not take place in the area covered by the Baltic Sea Ice Lobe to the southwest. Overall, the results suggest that the ice retreat of the Finnish Lake District Ice Lobe was of the same magnitude as the contemporary Allerød interstadial ice retreat event along the western flank of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet in Norway and minor ice‐sheet oscillations in central Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An advanced method to study geomorphology of the well-known inselberg landscape in Finnish Lapland is introduced. Conventionally topographical maps and altitude reference produced from stereographic aerial photographs has been used. Now the LiDAR data has opened a new way to study geomorphology and terrain in detail. We applied the new methods in eastern Finnish Lapland from where seven inselbergs have been identified and analysed. With an accurate elevation data and images we could identify the detailed morphology in the inselbergs and examine the processes that actively alter the terrain. LiDAR data opened a view to the preglacial history and processes. Some preliminary estimations of the rate and amount of preglacial erosion could be made. It seems that erosion rate may have been in order of 2-10 m/Myr in Lapland based on existing datings and stratigraphic observations. Weathering and erosion history in Lapland is long as the kaolinite clays of Late Cenozoic, Mesozoic or even Mesoproterozoic in age are found in the weathered bedrock. Although all disconformities older than the Mesozoic era have probably been eroded to an unidentifiable extent, there is good reason to suppose that the main characteristics of the relief, including inselbergs, originated as early as the Late Cretaceous or at least in the Palaeocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Newly available high resolution airborne LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) technology is generating unprecedented next-generation imagery of Earth surface features. LiDAR datasets are being employed by the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) as part of a new national geological initiative (Glacier Dynamic database: GDdatabase) to rapidly and cost-effectively map glacial landforms and sediments left by the last (Late Weichselian) Fennoscandian Ice Sheet (FIS). There is a high demand for such data in hydrogeological, geoengineering and mineral exploration projects and also for the identification of glacial landforms that provide key information regarding ice sheet rheology, growth and decay. An important step forward with this new technique is the recognition of paleoice stream corridors with fast flowing ice (> 3 km yr1 based on modern ice sheets), surrounded by stagnant or sluggish-flowing ice. Precise geomorphic criteria are now available for recognition of paleo-ice streams, based on the elongation of subglacial streamlined bedforms and the presence of megascale glacial lineations. Flow sets of drumlins and megascale glacial lineations can now be mapped in high resolution using LiDAR and are now seen as genetically related forms in a continuum that records increasing ice flow velocity and the creation of a low friction bed. This paper briefly outlines the nature of the GDdatabase and the methodology behind its construction and provides examples of principal bedform types that record the dynamic interplay of paleo-ice stream lobes in the Finnish sector of the last FIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An ArcGIS geodatabase called the Ancient Shoreline Database (ASD) was developed for the study and interpretation of ancient shorelines and shoreline displacement information. It was further divided into the Isolation Database (ISD) and Shoreline Landform Database (SLD) based on the characteristics of the available information. In the current study, observations related to the maximum extension of the Litorina Sea and the highest shoreline in Finland were carefully recorded and classified in the ASD. A total of 1625 shoreline observations were stored in the ASD, of which 106 were stratigraphic data points from dated isolation horizons (ISD) and the remaining 1519 were data points representing morphological shoreline observations (SLD). This paper describes the content of the ASD in terms of the variability and reliability of collated data points, but also introduces how modern LiDAR-based digital elevation models were utilized in validating the published observations as well as in interpreting new data points related to ancient shorelines from areas lacking information. The compiled ASD was used to reconstruct the diachronous maximum extension of the Litorina Sea and the highest shoreline of the Baltic Sea basin in Finland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the collection, management and distribution of data on superficial deposits by the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK). It provides a background on the mapping of superficial deposits in Finland which started in the 1860s. It explains that a scale-reliant approach has been chosen for the mapping data on superficial deposits, a module has been developed in ArcSDE for the observation data and a two-fold solution has been chosen for borehole data management. It expects the field mapping solution, including the collection of observational data, to evolve towards a net-centric approach, with high-speed, low-cost wireless connections. Also suggested is the potential integration of standardisation into the data management solution in the future.