Sven Lukas

Lund University | LU · Department of Geology

The Vimmerby Moraine is the only significant ice‐marginal moraine on the eastern side of southern Sweden, but no detailed studies exist on its formation during the final deglaciation of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet. Through ground‐penetrating radar surveys and detailed sediment logging, we provide evidence for an active, oscillating ice margin durin...

The European Alps are rapidly losing glacier mass due to climatic warming and are anticipated to be largely ice-free by the year 2100. Long-term glacier monitoring in the Alps provides a record of anthropogenically-driven climate change since the Little Ice Age maximum in ~1850. Understanding these long-term glacier changes provides a basis for mit...

Many glaciated valleys in Scotland contain distinctive, closely spaced ridges and mounds, which have been termed ‘hummocky moraine’. The ridges and mounds are widely interpreted as ice-marginal moraines, constructed during active retreat of mainly temperate glaciers. However, hummocky terrain can form by various processes in glacial environments, a...

The Younger Dryas (YD) was a period of rapid climate cooling that occurred at the end of the last glaciation. Here, we present the first palaeoglacier-derived reconstruction of YD precipitation across Europe, determined from 122 reconstructed glaciers and proxy atmospheric temperatures. Positive precipitation anomalies (YD versus modern) are found...

Stephen C. Porter was an international leader in Quaternary science for several decades, having worked on most of the world’s continents and having led international organizations and a prominent interdisciplinary journal. His work influenced many individuals, and he played an essential role in linking Chinese Quaternary science with the broader in...

The preliminary state of my PhD project SPLASH. A description of the conducted fieldwork at Blåisen, Norway and a description of the future fieldwork and laboratory work.

Younger Dryas ice-marginal (‘hummocky’) moraines in Scotland represent valuable terrestrial archives that can be used to obtain important information on ice-marginal dynamics and glacier thermal regimes during a period of rapid climatic change. In this paper, we present detailed sedimentological studies of Younger Dryas ice-marginal moraines in the...

Plateau icefields are a common form of mountain ice mass, frequently found in mid‐latitude to high‐arctic regions and increasingly recognized in the Quaternary record. Their top‐heavy hypsometry makes them highly sensitive to changes in climate when the equilibriaum line altitude (ELA) lies above the plateau edge, allowing ice to expand significant...

The Gaick is an enigmatic glaciated landscape in the Central Grampians, Scotland, dominated by an expansive dissected plateau. Previous studies have postulated widely differing interpretations of the glacial landforms and current understanding of the glacial events in this area is partly restricted by the absence of detailed glacial geomorphologica...

Considerable research has been conducted in Scotland to reconstruct Younger Dryas glaciers and palaeoclimatic conditions, but our understanding remains incomplete. In this contribution, we examine the Gaick, a dissected plateau that extends over ~520 km2 in the Central Grampians, Scotland. The extent and style of Younger Dryas glaciation in the Gai...

Most large tidewater glaciers in Svalbard are known to have surged at least once in the last few hundred years. However, very little information exists on the frequency, timing or magnitude of surges prior to the Little Ice Age (LIA) maximum in ∼1900. We investigate the sediment-landform assemblages produced by multiple advances of the Nathorstbree...

Geomorphological mapping is a well-established method for examining earth surface processes and landscape evolution in a range of environmental contexts. In glacial research, it provides crucial data for a wide range of process-oriented studies and palaeoglaciological reconstructions; in the latter case providing an essential geomorphological frame...

The Quaternary is the youngest geological period, beginning 2.58 Ma ago and including the present day; it is therefore the only geological period that is continuously growing. During the first epoch of the Quaternary, the Pleistocene, extremely cold and warm conditions alternated, frequently over short periods of time. This resulted in processes cu...

Some surge-type glaciers on the High-Arctic archipelago of Svalbard have large glacitectonic composite ridge systems at their terrestrial margins. These have formed by rapid glacier advance into proglacial sediments during the active surge phase, creating multicrested moraine complexes. Such complexes can be formed during single surge advances or m...

A significant inventory of evidence exists for Loch Lomond Stadial (LLS; ≈Younger Dryas) glaciation in Scotland, with recent work focused on satellite icefields. However, studies of more marginal settings are important for assessing the influence of topoclimatic factors on glacier functioning and, crucially, the impact of these on glacier-derived p...

This paper reports new fieldwork at Warsash which clarifies the terrace stratigraphic framework of the Palaeolithic archaeology of the region. Sections were recorded in former gravel pits and at coastal locations, supplemented by the use of ground penetrating radar and luminescence dating techniques. The region’s extensive borehole archive was also...

The Southern part of the Russian Altai Mountains is recognized for its evidence of catastrophic glacial lake outbursts. However, little is known about the late Pleistocene paleoglacial history, despite the interest in such reconstructions for constraining paleoclimate. In this study, we present a detailed paleoglaciological reconstruction of the Ch...

Die glazialgeomorphologische und -sedimentologische Terminologie hat in den vergangenen zwei Jahrzehnten international eine starke Weiterentwicklung erfahren und die Nutzung der Begrifflichkeiten folgt seit geraumer Zeit einheitlichen Richtlinien. Grundsätzlich ist bei der Aufnahme glazialer Ablagerungen auf eine saubere Trennung zwischen Beschreib...

Glacier reconstructions are widely used in palaeoclimatic studies and this paper presents a new semi-automated method for generating glacier reconstructions: GlaRe, is a toolbox coded in Python and operating in ArcGIS. This toolbox provides tools to generate the ice thickness from the bed topography along a palaeoglacier flowline applying the stand...

Closely-spaced minor moraines allow observations of moraine formation and ice-marginal fluctuations on short timescales, helping to better understand glacier retreat and predict its geomorphological effects (e.g. Sharp, 1984; Boulton, 1986; Bradwell, 2004; Lukas, 2012). Some minor moraines can be classified as annual moraines given sufficient chron...

Suites of closely-spaced minor moraines may help further understanding of glacier retreat and predict its geomorphological effects through the observations of moraine formation on short timescales. This research is common in lowland, maritime settings (Sharp, 1984; Boulton, 1986; Krüger, 1995; Reinardy et al., 2013), but remains sparse in high-moun...

Despite a wealth of research on the patterns and timing of glaciation in Glen Roy over the last 150 years, glacial events within Glen Turret remain heavily debated. These debates centre on the extent and source of Loch Lomond Stadial (Younger Dryas) ice in Glen Turret, and the implications for the age and genesis of the Turret Fan. Here we present...

The englacial entrainment of basal debris during surges presents an opportunity to investigate processes acting at the glacier bed. The subsequent melt-out of debris-rich englacial structures during the quiescent phase produces geometrical ridge networks on glacier forelands that are diagnostic of surge activity. We investigate the link between deb...

A toolbox for the automated calculation of glacier equilibrium-line altitudes (ELAs) using the Accumulation Area Ratio, Accumulation Area Balance Ratio, Altitude Area and Kurowski methods is presented. These are the most commonly-used methods of ELA calculation in palaeo-glacier reconstructions. The toolbox has been coded in Python and runs in ArcG...

ABSTRACT. Large numbers of small valley glaciers on Svalbard were thicker and more extensive during the Little Ice Age (LIA), demonstrated by prominent ice-cored moraines up to several kilometres beyond present-day margins. The majority of these glaciers have since experienced a long period of strongly negative mass balance during the 20th century...

A record of Younger Dryas glaciation in Scotland is well established. However, the role of the Monadhliath, a significant plateau area extending over 840 km2 in central Scotland, has never been investigated systematically. We present the first systematic glacial geomorphological mapping across the whole region, which has led to the identification o...

In 2012 the Engineering Group of the Geological Society of London established a Working Party to undertake a state-of-the-art review on the ground conditions associated with former Quaternary periglacial and glacial environments and their materials, from an engineering geological viewpoint. The final report was not intended to define the geographic...

Large ice-marginal push moraine complexes, also known as composite ridge systems, have a restricted distribution at active glacier margins, and are thought to be associated with a combination of specific glaciological conditions and the availability of deformable material in the glacier foreland. In Svalbard, it has been recognised that they are of...

The geomorphology produced during tidewater glacier surges in Svalbard is often well-preserved on fjord floors, and recent studies utilising swath bathymetry data have helped to characterise these submarine landsystems at various locations. However, in order to capture the full geomorphological record of surging in glaciomarine environments, it is...

Clast shape measurements have developed into a standard method for reconstructing the transport histories of sediments in glacial environments. The majority of studies use the ‘RA-C40’ covariance approach, with some researchers routinely including clasts of varying lithologies within their samples. The corollary is that variable lithological proper...

Over the last 15 years, clast shape measurements have developed into a standard method for reconstructing the transport histories of sediments in glacial environments. Indeed, the combined use of form and roundness indices has been applied to clasts in temperate, polythermal, and cold-based glacier systems. The technique has also been extended to p...

Lateral moraines are prominent features of glaciated landscapes in high-mountain environments and key landforms in glacier and palaeoclimatic reconstructions, yet, compared to smaller moraines, they have been little studied and several aspects are not well understood. We here present detailed sedimentological results from the lateral moraines of Fi...

The potential of luminescence dating of high-alpine lacustrine sediments is tested on samples taken from three high-altitude moraine-bounded lakes in the Swiss Alps. Independent age control is provided by radiocarbon ages and detailed palynological data in all cases. All samples show good luminescence characteristics (no thermal transfer, good dose...

High latitude and high altitude areas, here collectively called "cold regions", are the theatre of several geomorphological processes that lead to the formation of a variety of landforms. Classically, in Geomorphology, these processes are studied in three separate disciplines: glacial, periglacial and paraglacial geomorphology. However, the more th...

This paper presents the first detailed sedimentological study of annual moraines formed by an alpine valley glacier. The moraines have been formed since at least AD 1980 by a subsidiary lobe of Gornergletscher, Switzerland, that advances up a reverse bedrock slope. They reach heights of 0.5-1.5 m, widths of up to 6 m and lengths of up to several hu...

The complex record of glaciogenic landforms and sediments in Britain relating to the last British-Irish Ice Sheet provides the opportunity to reconstruct former ice extents, ice dynamics, retreat patterns and examine their links to climate change. Yet in Scotland, as in the rest of Britain, a previously fragmentary approach to palaeo-glaciological...

The mechanisms controlling the incorporation of large volumes of debris into glacier ice during High-Arctic surges are important for a number of reasons. Firstly, they may provide an indication of basal conditions beneath the glacier. Secondly, the relationship between debris layers and ice can present evidence of the tectonic regime active during...

Over the last 15 years, clast shape measurements have developed into a standard method for reconstructing the transport histories of sediments in glacial environments. Indeed, the combined use of form and roundness indices has been applied to clasts in temperate, polythermal, and cold-based glacier systems. The technique has also been extended to p...

Studies on the formation of alpine lateral moraines are rare; consequently, their internal structure and their modes of formation are relatively poorly understood. We present here sedimentological and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data from a lateral moraine complex where an exposure allows radar facies to be compared to the field evidence. The mo...

Bennett M. R. & Glasser N. F. 2009. Glacial Geology. Ice Sheets and Landforms, 2nd ed. xii + 385 pp. Wiley-Blackwell. Price £85.00, €97.80, US $129.95 (hard covers); £29.95, €34.50, US$ 54.95 (paperback). ISBN 978 0 470 51690 4; 978 0 470 51691 1 (pb). - Volume 147 Issue 6 - Sven Lukas

The reconstruction of former mountain glaciers has long been used to examine the implications of rapid climate shifts, for example at the last glacial–interglacial transition, and for evaluating asynchronous behaviour of mountain glaciers compared with mid-latitude ice sheets during the Late Quaternary. Glacier reconstruction has also been used as...

Quaternary geomorphological and geological mapping of a large area (∼1800 km2) in the northwestern Scottish Highlands has led to the reconstruction of a coherent mountain ice field approximately 45 km long and 30 km wide at its maximum extent. This West Sutherland ice field covered an area of ∼350 km2 and had a mean equilibrium-line altitude of 334...

In Scotland, our understanding of the pattern of glacier fluctuations is still very incomplete. As in the rest of Britain, no systematic research has been carried out on regional landsystem variations and as a result our understanding of glacier dynamics and their relationship to climate reconstructions remains limited. In particular, events relati...

Arctic ice masses are likely to experience some of the most dramatic changes in the context of projected atmospheric warming. Understanding how quickly and in what form these changes will manifest themselves is important in order to be able to predict future impacts, through feedback mechanisms, on the climate at different spatial scales, ranging f...

High-alpine environments react sensitively to changes in climate. Depending on size, catchment area and valley topography, mountain glaciers response relatively fast with advances and recessions to shifts in temperature and precipitation (e.g. Oerlemans, 2005). About half of the present glaciers in the Swiss Alps are located in the highest mean alt...

High latitude and high altitude areas, here collectively called "cold regions", have experienced extreme geomorphological changes in the past and are likely to do so in the future. This is because cold regions are characterized by steeper horizontal and vertical gradients of the atmospheric variables, which ultimately control surface processes in g...

Studies on the genesis of subaerial debris flows and associated deposits are relatively rare in the literature, especially in an ice-marginal context of moraine formation. The present contribution reports results from both the macro- and micro-scales of a subaerial depositional setting in order to contribute to closing this gap. At the macroscale,...

The Lateglacial Period in Europe is characterised by pronounced climatic fluctuations and encompasses the time from Devensian (Weichselian) ice sheet retreat to the beginning of the Holocene. The most notable period in terms of geomorphological activity is the Younger Dryas (12.7-11.5 ka BP), during which an ice cap centred on the main watershed co...

The melt-out of material contained within englacial thrust planes has been proposed to result in the formation of stacked moraine sequences with characteristic proximal rectilinear slopes. This model has been applied to explain the formation of Scottish Younger Dryas ice-marginal (‘hummocky’) moraines on the basis of these morphological characteris...

Linking the timing of glacial episodes and behaviour to climatic shifts that are documented in ice and marine sedimentary archives is key to understanding ocean-land interactions. In the NW Scottish Highlands a large number of closely spaced ('hummocky') moraines formed at retreating glacier margins. Independent age control on one palaeo-glacier li...

Krundalen, a valley occupied by three eastern outlet glaciers of the Jostedalsbre ice cap, contains three groups of moraines, two of which are outside the dated neoglacial (`Little Ice Age', LIA) limits. Exposures in the outermost moraine ridge display three sedimentary units. Detailed sedimentological analyses reveal that the lower two units forme...

The Chilean Lake District is a geodynamically active area located at the foot of the Andean cordillera and permanently influenced by the Chilean active continental margin. The study area is prone to steady mass movements that are triggered by active volcanism, strong earthquakes and climatic forces. On the glacial-born lake Lago Calafquén high-reso...

Knowledge about moraine sequences produced by former glaciers can reveal much about the interaction between glaciers and palaeoclimate. In the far NW Highlands of Scotland, detailed records of deglaciation during the Younger Dryas (Loch Lomond Stadial) are preserved in sequences of ‘hummocky moraines’, consisting of arcuate chains of ridges and mou...

Glacier reconstruction enables the calculation of palaeoglaciological and palaeoclimatic variables such as the equilibrium-line altitude and palaeo-precipitation values. Such data are important for our understanding of past atmosphere-cryosphere interactions and as input variables to constrain numerical models effectively. Numerical dating is cruci...

The Younger Dryas was the last return to severe cold conditions prior to early Holocene warming and is recorded in several lateglacial proxy records in Europe and elsewhere on Earth. Although isolated studies on Younger Dryas glacier extent exist in some areas of the Swiss and Eastern Alps, attempts to synthesise the gathered data have not been und...

By explicitly linking process to form, landsystem models developed in modern environments provide powerful tools for the reconstruction of past environments from the sedimentological and geomorphological record. Some landform characteristics, however, may originate by more than one process (equifinality), so although a particular depositional model...

The "Glacial geological and geomorphological map of the NW Highlands, Scotland" is the result of detailed aerial photograph interpretation and field mapping at a scale of 1: 25,000 and presents the distribution of glacial deposits and landforms in an area of ca. 1000 km 2 in the far NW Scottish Highlands (58 • 5"N 4 • 58"W to 58 • 29"N 4 • 34"W; Br...

The debris-covered ice-margins of three largely cold-based glaciers in central Spitsbergen were investigated to reconstruct their formation and degradation. Clast shapes indicate dominant englacial and supraglacial transport with a smaller subglacial component. Emplacement of material is inferred to have been through meltout along flowlines due to...

Clast shape measurements have become a standard tool in the reconstruction of transport histories in a variety of depositional settings (Demir et al., 2009). In glacial environments, the combined use of clast form and roundness has become an established tool in the past 15 years or so, and environments where this tool has been used range from tempe...