ADVANCES IN DEGLACIATION ON SVALBARD

Despite warm regional fjords, a variety of data suggest extensive glacier advances on Svalbard in connection with the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. We present the first well-constrained end moraine formed during the Lateglacial-early Holocene (LGEH) in De Geerbukta, NE Svalbard. The landform was deposited by an outlet glacier readvancing into a fjord suggesting a far more extended position than the late Holocene maximum. We compare the synchronicity of this glacier advance to climate and 15 other proposed glacier advances from the Svalbard region. Furthermore, we introduce an additional 30 locations identified through remote sensing where glacial deposits have been wave-washed or cut by early Holocene raised marine shorelines, suggesting the landforms have similar relative age. Contrary to current understanding, evidence suggests that the LGEH glaciers were much more dynamic, exhibited readvances and extended well beyond the extensively studied late Holocene glacial expansion. Given the widespread occurrence of the LGEH deposits on Svalbard, we suggest that the culmination of the Neoglacial advances during the Little Ice Age does not mark the Holocene maximum extent of most Svalbard glaciers; it is just the most studied and most visible in the geological record.