Timing of the Baltic Ice Lake in the eastern Baltic

Abstract

A shoreline database for the Baltic, covering the Late Weichselian and Holocene, was compiled. The database includes about 1600 sites from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, NW Russia, Poland, Sweden and was used to create a GIS-based palaeogeographical reconstructions on the development of the Baltic Ice Lake (BIL). The formation of the highest shoreline of the BIL in Estonia was connected with the development of the Pandivere ice marginal zone (Estonia) and the lowest with the Salpausselka ice-marginal formations (Finland). There was a well-accepted knowledge that the Pandivere ice marginal zone correlates with the Neva ice marginal zone in NW Russia dated to 13 300 cal yr BP. Recent studies of the late glacial sites in northern Estonia indicate that the age of the Pandivere ice marginal zone and hence the highest shoreline of the BIL A 1 is about 13 800–14 000 cal yr BP. It was followed by the BIL stage A 2 , which formed in front of the Palivere ice marginal belt about 13 200–13 500 cal yr BP. The final drainage of the BIL took place about 11 650 cal yr BP. The timing of the BIL stages was derived from AMS- 14 C dates and correlated with varve chronology, OSL and 10 Be dates.