The onset and recession of the Last Scandinavian Glaciation in the eastern White Sea Region

The paper presents the new data on the age and structural features of the sedimentary complex of the last (Late Valdai) glacial cover along the periphery of the Kuloi plateau (the Zimniy and Abramovsky coasts of the White Sea and the Kuloi River valley). It was established that glacial deposits of the Scandinavian glaciation can be traced over the entire territory of the study area, and their thickness gradually decreases to the north-east. They are represented by the basal tills, which compose a plain with separate hills. Pressure moraines complicated by folding and thrusting glaciodislocations are established in three areas. Analysis of the dip of glaciostructures, long axes of pebbles in the moraine, as well as the petrographic composition of the clasts indicates the forma- tion of glacial deposits during the ice advance from the west and southwest to the east and northeast. On the Abramovsky coast above and inside the basal till, glaciolacustrine sediments represented by fine-grained sands with siltstone interlayers were found, for which dates ranging from 22 to 17.5 thousand years ago were obtained by the optically stimulated luminescence method. These sediments characterise the stage of ice advance. Gla- ciolacustrine sediments are fragmentally distributed on the Zimniy coast. The obtained dates indicate the formation of these sediments during the degradation of the last glaciation 17–14.7 kyr ago. Thus, it was possible to trace the dynamics of the glacial cover development during the last glacial maximum, as well as to reconstruct some stages of its degradation and to time the change of sedimentary setting from glacial and glaciolacustrine to marine. The Abramovsky coast was covered by a thin glacier only during LGM up to 17.5 thousand years ago. During the deglaciation at least three areas of pressure moraine were formed, which fix the intermediate position of the active marginal zone. The spatial correlation of the pressure moraines with the adjacent regions and the obtained chronological data allows us to compare those stages with the Krestets and Luga phases of deglacia- tion. The initial stage of deglaciation within the Zimny coast was characterised by the existence of a system of supraglacial and small proglacial water bodies near the marginal zone of the last glaciation.

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