Abstract
The accuracy with which the date of burial of a palaeosol can be estimated is assessed using a very detailed radiocarbon-dating study of one buried soil horizon. Twenty six depth controlled dates have been obtained from physico-chemically fractionated samples of the organic surface (FH) horizon of a humo-ferric podzol buried by the southern Norwegian glacier Haugabreen at its ‘Little Ice Age’ maximum limit. The 14C dates show an order of magnitude increase in age with depth from 485 ± 60 to 4020 ± 70 14C years B.P. over 14.5cm. Although this age range suggests potential errors of the order of thousands of years, the age/depth gradient appears to provide a basis for quite accurate estimates of the date of soil burial and of the date of moraine formation.
These results, combined with supporting relative-age evidence from a large sample of southern Norwegian glaciers, suggest that most glaciers in southern Norway reached their Neoglacial glacier maxima in the ‘Little Ice Age’. This lack of synchroneity with other glaciated areas of Europe, including northern Scandinavia, may be due to regional differences in the pattern of Holocene climatic change.
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Matthews, J.A. (1984). Limitations of 14C Dates from Buried Soils in Reconstructing Glacier Variations and Holocene Climate. In: Mörner, NA., Karlén, W. (eds) Climatic Changes on a Yearly to Millennial Basis. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7692-5_31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7692-5_31
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