Methodological Aspects of Glaciomorphological Mapping in the Marginal Zone of the Southeastern Sector of the Last Scandinavian Ice Sheet

Glaciomorphological mapping is one of the main methods for studying the structure and dynamic of the former ice sheets, which has been developing actively in recent decades in connection with using remote sensing data for mapping landforms. Open databases of glacial landforms began to appear, which creates a prerequisite for a better understanding of the glacial morpholithogenesis and the construction of detailed paleoglaciological reconstructions. Such databases have not been developed in Russia yet because of the lack of studies in the field of small scale glaciomorphological mapping. During our investigations in the test area situated in the marginal zone of the south-east part of the last Scandinavian ice sheet, methodological aspects detail glaciomorphological mapping were developed. It was found that in forested areas available digital elevation models are suitable exclusively for medium-scale mapping, but in non-forested terrains they may be used for small-scale mapping. Based on our results, we propose a number of reliable morphological indicators of glacial landforms that were used to compile the glaciomorphological map of the test area. It has been established that in forested areas, it is not possible to identify isometric positive landforms isometric negative landforms are well expressed in all kinds of landscape. Elongated landforms may be distinguished more confidently than isometric, regardless of the degree of forest cover. Results of glaciomorphological mapping of the study area will form the basis for the geodatabase which is going to be expanded to the entire Russian sector of the marginal zone of the Scandinavian ice sheet of the Late Valdai (Ostashkov) glaciation.

Glaciomorphological mapping, Scandinavian Ice Sheet, Late Valdai, remote sensing data, digital elevation models (DEM)

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