The northern sector of the last British ice sheet : maximum extent and demise

Strongly divided opinion has led to competing, apparently contradictory, views on the timing, extent, flow configuration and decay mechanism of the last British Ice Sheet. We review the existing literature and reconcile some of these differences using remarkable new sea-bed imagery. This bathymetric data provides unprecedented empirical evidence of confluence and subsequent separation of the last British and Fennoscandian Ice Sheets. Critically, it also allows a viable pattern of ice-sheet disintegration to be proposed for the first time. Covering the continental shelf around the northern United Kingdom, extensive echosounder data reveals striking geomorphic evidence – in the form of tunnel valleys and moraines – relating to the former British and Fennoscandian Ice Sheets. The pattern of tunnel valleys in the northern North Sea Basin and the presence of large moraines on the West Shetland Shelf, coupled with stratigraphic evidence from the Witch Ground Basin, all suggest that at its maximum extent a grounded ice sheet flowed from SE to NW across the northern North Sea Basin, terminating at the continental-shelf edge. The zone of confluence between the British and much larger Fennoscandian Ice Sheets was probably across the northern Orkney Islands, with fast-flowing ice in the Fair Isle Channel focusing sediment delivery to the Rona and Foula Wedges. This period of maximum confluent glaciation (c. 30–25 ka BP) was followed by a remarkable period of large-scale ice-sheet re-organisation. We present evidence suggesting that as sea level rose, a large marine embayment opened in the northern North Sea Basin, as far south as the Witch Ground Basin, forcing the two ice sheets to decouple rapidly along a north–south axis east of Shetland. As a result, both ice sheets rapidly adjusted to new quasi-stable margin positions forming a second distinct set of moraines (c. 24–18 ka BP). The lobate overprinted morphology of these moraines on the mid-shelf west of Orkney and Shetland indicates that the re-organisation of the British Ice Sheet was extremely dynamic — probably dominated by a series of internally forced readvances. Critically, much of the ice in the low-lying North Sea Basin may have disintegrated catastrophically as decoupling progressed in response to rising sea levels. Final-stage deglaciation was marked by near-shore ice streaming and increasing topographic control on ice-flow direction. Punctuated retreat of the British Ice Sheet continued until c. 16 ka BP when, following the North Atlantic iceberg-discharge event (Heinrich-1), ice was situated at the present-day coastline in NW Scotlan

Landform assemblages and sedimentary processes along the Norwegian Channel Ice Stream

Several regional and detailed bathymetric datasets together with 2D and 3D seismic data are compiled to investigate the landform assemblages and sedimentary processes along the former path of the Norwegian Channel Ice Stream (NCIS). At the broad scale, the glacial geomorphology and sedimentary architecture reveals three different zones along the ice-stream path, characterized by: (1) glacial erosion in the onset zone and inner shelf area, (2) sediment transport through the main trunk of the ice stream across the mid-shelf, and (3) a zone of deposition towards the outer continental shelf edge. Along the first 400 km of the ice stream bed (outer Oslofjord–Skagerrak–Stavanger) a major overdeepening is associated with suites of crag-and-tail features at the transition from the crystalline bedrock to the sedimentary bedrock, together with evidence of glaciotectonic thrusting in the form of hill-hole pairs. Here we interpret extensive erosion of both sedimentary rocks and Quaternary sediments. This zone is succeeded by an approximately 400 km long zone, through which most of the sediments eroded from the inner shelf were transported, rather than being deposited. We infer that sediment was transported subglacially and is likely to have been advected downstream by soft sediment deformation. The thickness of till of inferred Weichselian age generally varies from 0 and 50 m and this zone is characterized by mega-scale glacial lineations (MSGLs) which we interpret to be formed in a dynamic sedimentary system dominated by high sediment fluxes, but with some localized sediment accretion associated with lineations. Towards the shelf break, the North Sea Fan extends to the deep Norwegian Sea, and reflects massive sedimentation of glacigenic debris onto the continental slope. Numerous glacigenic debris flows accumulated and constructed a unit up to 400 m thick during the Last Glacial Maximum. The presence of these three zones (erosion, transport, deposition) is consistent with observations from other palaeo-ice streams and their significance arises from their potential to feedback and impact on ice stream dynamics