John Inge Svendsen

University of Bergen | UiB · Department of Economics

The extent of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet in southwestern Norway is precisely located during the well-characterized Younger Dryas re-advance. However, the thickness of the ice sheet is less well constrained inland from the terminal position. Some exceptions include lateral moraines traced inland and up to 1000 m a.s.l. along Hardangerfjorden. Here,...

We describe glaci-lacustrine sediments buried under thick tills in Folldalen, south-east Norway, a site located close to the former centre of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet. Thus, the location implies that the ice sheet had melted when the sediments were deposited. The exposed ground was occupied by arctic vegetation. The best age estimate from 20 quar...

We here outline the deglaciation history in the Polar Ural Mountains from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) until the mountain range was completely ice-free during the early Holocene. Our reconstruction of the course of deglaciation is based on cosmogenic exposure dating (¹⁰Be) of erratic boulders combined with stratigraphic results from sediment core...

Lake sediment records archive the Quaternary environmental and climatic history in northern high latitudes. Because of their spatial distribution, age range, time resolution, age control, and high sensitivity to paleoenvironmental conditions, lake records contribute to evaluating regional to hemispheric‐scale climate change. Here, we compare the ch...

There have been large uncertainties about the glacial history in the Ural Mountains during Marine Isotope Stage 2 (MIS 2). New field-based studies have now provided a better basis to constrain the dimensions of the glaciers. ¹⁰Be exposure dating of glacier transported boulders from moraines indicates that some were only slightly larger during the L...

Our knowledge of the glacial history of the Ural Mountains is largely based on geomorphological mapping supported by cosmogenic nuclide ¹⁰Be exposure dating, and descriptions of exposed sections dated with optically stimulated luminescence and ¹⁴C methods. Additionally, we have gained new insight into the glacial chronology from seismic surveys and...

We provide a brief description of the glacial landscapes in the Ural Mountains. It is primarily north of 63°45′ latitude that one finds distinctive glacial landforms such as glacially eroded cirques, U-shaped valley, and overdeepened mountain lakes. These landforms are a result of both locally formed glaciers and large shelf-centred ice sheets. Tod...

Because continuous and high-resolution records are scarce in the polar Urals, a multiproxy study was carried out on a 54 m long sediment succession (Co1321) from Lake Bolshoye Shchuchye. The sedimentological, geochemical, pollen and chironomid data suggest that glaciers occupied the lake's catchment during the cold and dry MIS 2 and document a chan...

Understanding past responses of ice sheets to climate change provides an important long-term context for observations of present day, and projected future, ice-sheet change. In this work, we reconstruct the deglaciation of the marine-terminating western margin of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet in the outer Hardangerfjorden area of southwestern Norway,...

Based on radiocarbon dating, a tephra horizon, varve counts and palaeomagnetism, detailed age models covering the last~24 k cal a BP, have been developed for the stratigraphy in the lakes Bolshoye Shchuchye and Maloye Shchuchye in the Polar Ural Mountains, Russia. The inclination curves from these lakes show nearly identical palaeomagnetic secular...

The Russian Arctic is an extensive region, with relatively few long-duration paleoclimate reconstructions compared to other terrestrial Arctic regions. We present a 24 000-year reconstruction of climate in the Polar Ural Mountains using n-alkanoic acid hydrogen isotopes from Lake Bolshoye Shchuchye. Major last deglaciation climate changes in the No...

During the last glacial–interglacial cycle, Arctic biotas experienced substantial climatic changes, yet the nature, extent and rate of their responses are not fully understood1–8. Here we report a large-scale environmental DNA metagenomic study of ancient plant and mammal communities, analysing 535 permafrost and lake sediment samples from across t...

Here we present the use of ice-dammed lake-related landforms and sediments for reconstructing the final phases of decay of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet. In the late stages of the deglaciation, extensive glacial lakes were dammed between the easterly retreating Scandinavian Ice Sheet and the water divide within the mountains to the west. Using high-r...

Marine outlet glaciers on Greenland are retreating, yet it is unclear if the recent fast retreat will persist, and how atmosphere and ocean warming will impact future retreat. We show how a marine outlet glacier in Hardangerfjorden retreated rapidly in response to the abrupt warming following the Younger Dryas cold period (approximately 11,600 year...

A 24,000-year record of plant community dynamics, based on pollen and ancient DNA from the sediments (sedaDNA) of Lake Bolshoye Shchuchye in the Polar Ural Mountains, provides detailed information on the flora of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and also changes in plant community composition and dominance. It greatly improves on incomplete records f...

Loss-on-ignition (LOI) is the most widely used measure of organic matter in lake sediments, a variable related to both climate and land-use change. The main drawback for conventional measurement methods is the processing time and hence high labor costs associated with high-resolution analyses. On the other hand, broad-based near infrared reflectanc...

Plain Language Summary The end of the last glacial maximum (~22,000 to 11,600 years ago) in northern Europe contains two particularly abrupt warming events that occurred around 14,600 and 11,600 years ago. These past warming events provide an opportunity to study changes in precipitation and other aspects of hydrology during abrupt temperature incr...

We present geomorphological evidence of large, previously undocumented, early Holocene ice-dammed lakes in the Scandinavian Mountains of northwestern Sweden. The lakes extents indicate that the last remnants of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet were located east of the mountain range. Some early pioneering works have presented similar reconstructions, whe...

Abstract: This study presents geomorphological evidence indicating final deglaciation of the last Scandinavian Ice Sheet remnants east of the Scandinavian mountain range, northwestern Sweden, in contrast with the prevailing view of final deglaciation in the higher mountains of Sarek. High resolution (LiDAR) terrain models was used to map out a larg...

Abstract: Here we present new results constraining the ice-sheet thinning during deglaciation and the formation of a local ice-cap during the Younger Dryas at the mouth of Hardangerfjorden, southwest Norway. We base our interpretations on a combination of geomorphological mapping, using high resolution (LiDAR) terrain models, together with 10Be-dat...

We reconstruct patterns of ice flow and retreat of the southwestern Scandinavian Ice Sheet, from 2900 field observations of glacial striae and elevation measurements of 60 ice-marginal-deltas from a high-resolution LiDAR DEM. During the Last Glacial Maximum, ice flow was towards the west across the entire area, including across several-hundred mete...

Seismostratigraphical studies of the 11.8‐km²‐large and ~140‐m‐deep Lake Bolshoye Shchuchye, Polar Ural Mountains, reveal up to 160‐m‐thick acoustically laminated sediments in the lake basin. Using a dense grid of seismic lines, the spatial and temporal distributions of the sedimentary history have been reconstructed. Three regional seismic horizon...

Here we present new results constraining the ice-sheet thinning during deglaciation and extent of the Younger Dryas re-advance in the outer Hardangerfjord area. We base our interpretations on a combination of geomorphological mapping, using high resolution (LiDAR) terrain models, together with Terrestrial Cosmogenic Nuclide (TCN) dating of glacial...

We present a well‐dated, high‐resolution and continuous sediment record spanning the last c. 24 000 years from lake Bolshoye Shchuchye located in the Polar Ural Mountains, Arctic Russia. This is the first continuous sediment succession reaching back into the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) ever retrieved from this region. We reconstruct the glacial and...

While there are extensive macro- and microfossil records of a range of plants and animals from the Quaternary, earthworms and their close relatives amongst annelids are not preserved as fossils and therefore the knowledge of their past distributions is limited. This lack of fossils means that clitellate worms (Annelida) are currently underused in p...

Our knowledge about the glaciation history in the Russian Arctic has to a large extent been based on geomorphological mapping supplemented by studies of short stratigraphical sequences found in exposed sections. Here we present new geochronological data from the Polar Ural Mountains along with a high‐resolution sediment record from Bolshoye Shchuch...

Tephra shards from the Vedde Ash eruption have been identified in two lakes from northwestern Russia and the Polar Ural Mountains. This is the most distal and easternmost occurrence of this regional tephra marker horizon found so far and it extends the area of the Vedde Ash tephra more than 1700 km further east than previously documented. This mean...

Marine-terminating glaciers and ice streams are important controls of ice sheet mass balance. However, understanding of their long-term response to external forcing is limited by relatively short observational records of present-day glaciers and sparse geologic evidence for paleo-glaciers. Here we use a high-resolution ice sheet model with an accur...

Here, we present and discuss results from geo‐archaeological and palaeo‐zoological investigations at the Palaeolithic site Pymva Shor, in the Russian Arctic. As many as 3324 vertebrate fauna remains were recovered during two excavations. This includes bones of mammals, birds and fish. Radiocarbon dates were obtained from 26 specimens. The results s...

Here we present a partly varved and exceptionally well dated continuous sediment record spanning the last ca. 24,000 years from lake Bolshoye Shchuchye in the Polar Ural mountains of Arctic Russia. In addition, we present some preliminary results from the adjacent and seemingly also varved sediment record in lake Malshoye Shchuchye. The varved part...

We describe a sediment sequence comprising a thick till covered by thin beds of lacustrine sediments containing pollen and plant macrofossils derived from pioneer vegetation. Four consistent radiocarbon dates on terrestrial plant remains from the lacustrine sediments yielded an age of 10,500 calibrated years BP (cal years BP). This is the first acc...

Shallow marine molluscs that are today extinct close to Svalbard, because of the cold climate, are found in deposits there dating to the early Holocene. The most warmth-demanding species found, Zirfaea crispata, currently has a northern limit 1000 km farther south, indicating that August temperatures on Svalbard were 6°C warmer at around 10.2–9.2 c...

Understanding the response and resilience of the Arctic flora to past environmental change is an essential component informing ecosystem models and anticipating how plant communities may respond to future climate change. Reconstructing Arctic vegetation histories has often proved challenging due to poor taxonomic resolution and often low concentrat...

We present 30 10Be ages from glacial erratic boulders to constrain the deglaciation of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet in the Boknafjorden region, south-western Norway. The southern part of the island Karmøy, located at the mouth of this fjord system, became free of glacier ice before 16 ka, probably because of the sudden break up of the Norwegian Chann...

Blomvåg, on the western coast of Norway north of Bergen, is a classical site in Norwegian Quaternary science. Foreshore marine sediments, named the Blomvåg Beds and now dated to the Bølling-Allerød from 14.8 to 13.3 cal. ka BP, contain the richest Lateglacial bone fauna in Norway, numerous mollusc shells, driftwood, and flint that some archaeologis...

Cosmogenic nuclide exposure dating is a widely used method for constraining past ice sheet histories. We scrutinize a recently published dataset of cosmogenic 10Be data from erratic boulders in Norway used to constrain the deglaciation of the western Scandinavian Ice Sheet to 20 ka. Our model of the 10Be inventory in glacial surfaces leads us to co...

Distinct Younger Dryas (YD) moraines are mapped more-or-less continuously around the Scandinavian Ice Sheet. In most areas there is no evidence to suggest that a glacial re-advance took place during the YD, either because it did not happen or because older deposits have been removed by glacial erosion. In contrast we here present 90 radiocarbon dat...

The response of ice sheets to climate change can be examined by generating reconstructions of ice sheet change during the climatic turbulence that characterized the last deglaciation. Building on our previous published ¹⁰Be chronologies of southwestern Scandinavian Ice Sheet history, we present new data that complete our reconstruction of the ice s...

We present a new time-slice reconstruction of the Eurasian ice sheets (British–Irish, Svalbard–Barents–Kara Seas and Scandinavian) documenting the spatial evolution of these interconnected ice sheets every 1000 years from 25 to 10 ka, and at four selected time periods back to 40 ka. The time-slice maps of ice-sheet extent are based on a new Geograp...

DATED-1 comprises a compilation of dates related to the build-up and retreat of the Eurasian (British-Irish, Scandinavian, Svalbard-Barents-Kara Seas) Ice Sheets, and time-slice maps of the Eurasian Ice sheet margins. Dates are sourced from the published literature. Ice margins are based on published geological and chronological data and include un...

We present 34 new cosmogenic 10Be exposure ages that constrain the Lateglacial (Bølling–Preboreal) history of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet in the Lysefjorden region, south-western Norway. We find that the classical Lysefjorden moraines, earlier thought to be entirely of Younger Dryas age, encompass three adjacent moraines attributed to at least two i...

a b s t r a c t We describe and discuss the glacial and climate variations in the Polar Ural Mountains in northern Russia over the last 100 000 years. A series of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and radio-carbon ages from sediment cores demonstrate that there has been continuous deposition of lacustrine sediments throughout the last 65 ka i...

In recent decades, knowledge of the glacial history of the last Pleistocene glaciation in Eurasia has changed tremendously. According to recent investigations, a major ice advance first entered the Russian mainland as early as 80–100 ka, blocking all drainage and damming huge lakes in West Siberia and European Russia. Drainage was diverted southwar...

In the middle Pleistocene, Eurasia was affected by three major glaciations. The extent of the largest glaciation, the Don glaciation, is still incompletely known. For the Elsterian glaciation as well, the eastern limits are only roughly estimated. The ice sheet probably covered the West Siberian Plain and may have been the most extensive glaciation...

New time-slice reconstructions of the Eurasian Ice Sheet limits reveal that the timing of both the maximum ice sheet extent and the subsequent retreat were spatially variable. This variability most likely reflects regional contrasts in geographic setting, internal ice sheet dynamics and the forcing mechanisms. Here we report fresh results from an o...

A new palaeoenvironmental model for the evolution of the Byzovaya Palaeolithic site, northern Russia. Boreas, Vol. 41, pp. 527–545. 10.1111/j.1502-3885.2012.00259.x. ISSN 0300-9483. Recently, the sediment stratigraphy and geochronology of the well-known Palaeolithic site Byzovaya in northern Russia were investigated. New technological analyses of t...

Contrary to what Zwyns et al. claim on a bibliographical basis, the lithic industry of Byzovaya cannot belong to the Streletskayan complex or be considered as Upper Palaeolithic (UP). Direct analysis of northern assemblages and of Streletskayan technologies reveals incompatible features between these industries. Byzovaya is structured on specific M...

We present a new regional calibration of the 10Be production rate from two well-dated surfaces in southern Norway: a rock avalanche with 14C-dated wood and a precisely dated Younger Dryas moraine. Calculated 10Be production rates are 4.26 ± 0.13 and 4.65 ± 0.14 at g−1 a−1 for the Lal/Stone and Lifton scaling models, respectively. Our regional produ...

This study precisely constrains the timing of the Younger Dryas (YD) glacial maximum in south-western Norway by utilizing sediment records from lake basins. Two of the basins, located on the distal side of the mapped Herdla–Halsnøy Moraine, received meltwater directly from the ice sheet only when the ice margin reached its maximum extent during the...

The Scandinavian Ice Sheet formed around 12.6 Ma and expanded considerably from 2.7 Ma. During the Weichselian the western margin reached the coast during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5d and the continental shelf during MIS 5b, MIS 4 and MIS 2. It was almost gone during MIS 5c and 5a, and was much reduced during periods of MIS 3, notably the Ålesund...

Krüger, L. C., Paus, A., Svendsen, J. I. & Bjune, A. E. 2011: Lateglacial vegetation and palaeoenvironment in W Norway, with new pollen data from the Sunnmøre region. Boreas, 10.1111/j.1502-3885.2011.00213.x. ISSN 0300-9483. Two sediment sequences from Sunnmøre, northern W Norway, were pollen-analytically studied to reconstruct the Lateglacial vege...

Palaeolithic sites in Russian high latitudes have been considered as Upper Palaeolithic and thus representing an Arctic expansion of modern humans. Here we show that at Byzovaya, in the western foothills of the Polar Urals, the technological structure of the lithic assemblage makes it directly comparable with Mousterian Middle Palaeolithic industri...

We review geo-archaeological results from six Palaeolithic sites along the western flank of the northern Ural Mountains. The oldest traces of human activities, dated to around 36–35 14C ka BP (43–40 cal ka), were found in alluvial strata at Mamontovaya Kurya at the Polar Circle - their connection to cultures further south remains uncertain. Slightl...