The last Eurasian ice sheet

Abstract

A considerable portion of northern Eurasia, especially the Arctic continental shelves, was glaciated during the Late Wurm. This conclusion was first reached on the basis of glacial striae, submarine troughs, seabed diamictons, boulder trains and the patterns of glacio‐isostatic crustal movements. It was subsequently conclusively confirmed by data on the occurrence and positions of Late Wurm terminal moraines and proglacial lacustrine deposits. Reconstruction of ice‐front positions revealed that the last ice sheet in northern Eurasia (to be called the Eurasian Ice Sheet) extended without interruption from southwestern Ireland to the northeastern tip of the Taymyr Peninsula, a distance of 6,000 km, and covered an area of 8,370,000 km². One half of this area was located on present‐day continental shelves. The Eurasian Ice Sheet impounded the waters of the Northern Dvina, Mezen’, Pechora, Ob’ and Yenisey rivers, resulting in the formation of vast ice‐dammed lakes in the northeast of the Russian plain and in the West Siberian Plain. These lakes drained southward successively into the Aral, Caspian, Black and Mediterranean seas.