The late‐glacial development of the upper Klarälven Valley, Sweden

Abstract

During the retreat of the Late Weichselian ice margin, a narrow ice tongue filled the upper Klarälven valley in central Sweden. An inlet of the sea, about 150 km long and only 2 km wide, replaced the ice tongue. The sedimentation in this inlet can serve as an example of the development of a river valley in a formerly glaciated area. Against its eastern side, meltwater from the tributary valleys built up glaciofluvial deltas. Their distal, silty sediments filled the valley only partly downstream from the deltas. During the course of the isostatic rebound, braided streams developed and eroded the sediment surfaces rising above the sea‐level. The sediments were redeposited as secondary deltas, which eventually filled the valley up to the corresponding sea‐level. When the entire valley had been filled with silty sediments, a meander pattern developed, controlled by a bedrock threshold at the lower end of the upper Klarälven valley. The resulting stratigraphy in the bottom of the valley is a thick silt deposit overlain by fluvial meander sediments.

Lundqvist, J., 1996: The late‐glacial development of the upper Klarälven valley, Sweden. GFF, Vol. 118 (Pt. 1, March), pp. 49–62. ISSN 1103–5897.

Keywords:

• Quaternary
• glaciofluvial sediments
• deltas
• terraces
• deglaciation
• River Klarälven