2003 Seattle Annual Meeting (November 2–5, 2003)

Paper No. 5
Presentation Time: 9:20 AM

10BE DEGLACIATION CHRONOLOGY OF THE SOUTHERN MARGIN OF THE SCANDINAVIAN ICE SHEET


RINTERKNECHT, Vincent R.1, RAISBECK, Grant M.2, YIOU, Françoise2, CLARK, Peter U.3, BROOK, Edward J.4, BITINAS, Albertas5, MARKS, Leszek6, PIOTROWSKI, Jan A.7, RAUKAS, Anto8 and ZELÈS, Vitâlijs9, (1)Department of Geosciences, Oregon State Univ, Corvallis, OR 97331-5506, (2)Centre de Spectrométrie Nucléaire et de Spectrométrie de Masse, 91405 Orsay, (3)College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331-5506, (4)Department of Earth Sciences and Program in Environmental Science, Washington State Univ, Vancouver, WA 98686, (5)Department of Quaternary Geology, Geol Survey of Lithuania, 2600 Vilnius, (6)Polish Geol Institute, 00-975 Warsaw, Poland, (7)Department of Earth Sciences, Univ of Aarhus, C.F. Moellers Alle 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark, (8)Estonian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geology, EE-00001 Tallinn, Estonia, (9)Department Geography, Univ of Latvia, 19 Rainis Blvd, Riga, LV-1586, Latvia, rinterkv@geo.orst.edu

Prominent moraines crossing the Baltic region mark the late Pleistocene maximum extent and recessional phases of the southern margin of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet (SIS). However, dating control constraining the age of the LGM and retreat phases of the southern SIS margin in the region is all but lacking. We have sampled boulders for surface exposure dating with the cosmogenic nuclide 10Be from moraines along a broad south-to-north transect spanning Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Estonia, and Finland. Here we report 10Be concentrations on 138 boulders measured by accelerator mass spectrometry at the Tandetron facility, Gif-sur-Yvette, France. We calculated exposure ages assuming a production rate of 5.1 ± 0.3 atoms g-1 yr-1 at 1013.25 mbar pressure and high latitude, scaled for each site altitude and latitude. No corrections for snow cover or erosion have been applied. Eleven boulders from the LGM have a weighted mean age of 18.6 ± 2.8 10Be ka. Forty-one samples from the Pomeranian Moraine have a weighted mean age of 14.0 ± 1.7 10Be ka. Thirty-three samples from the Middle Lithuanian Moraine have a weighted mean age of 13.1 ± 1.6 10Be ka. Nine samples from the North Lithuanian Moraine have a weighted mean age of 13.0± 0.8 10Be ka. A single boulder on the Pandivere Moraine was dated at 13.0 ± 1.1 10Be ka. Eight samples from the Palivere Moraine have a weighted mean age of 10.0 ± 1.3 10Be ka. We interpret this moraine age as being too young since all the boulders were submerged beneath various phases of the Baltic Ice Lake, which would have substantially reduced the production rate for that period of time. Nine samples from the Younger Dryas Salpausselkä I Formation have a weighted mean of 12.1 ± 0.9 10Be ka. We chose to present here the moraine age standard deviations as the moraine age uncertainties. Most of the standard deviations are larger than the analytical uncertainties, indicating a geological source of uncertainties in addition to the analytical ones. This prevented us from using the analytical uncertainties as the uncertainty of the moraine ages.