the Expedition ARKTIS-XIX/4 of the research vessel POLARSTERN ...

6 Quaternary geological and biological studies on Store
Koldewey and on Geographical Society Ø
Ole Bennike, Holger Cremer, Lena Håkansson, Nadja Hultzsch, Martin Klug,
Svenja Kobabe, Bernd Wagner
Only a few studies were carried out so far to reconstruct the Late Quaternary and
Holocene environmental history of north eastern Greenland. Therefore, the extent
and the thickness of the ice shield and the outlet glaciers during the Last Glacial
Maximum (LGM) are still under discussion. According to the past investigations, the
deglaciation from the shelves started in eastern and north eastern Greenland
somewhen between 16 and 14 ka BP (Funder 1989, 1998). The ice retreat was
interrupted by several standstills or readvances and reached the present outer coast
at c. 9-11 ka BP. This was indicated by marine-sedimentological studies,
geomorphological investigations, the findings of fossils, and the study of lake
sediments. All lake sediment records from the outer coast of East Greenland, for
example, are younger than 10 ka BP (Wagner et al. 2000, Wagner & Melles 2001,
Bennike & Björck 2002, Wagner & Melles 2002), and no older lacustrine sediment
sequences have been recovered so far from this part of Greenland. However, it was
also suggested that parts of the outer coast have been ice free during the LGM. This
was traced back to the findings of pre-Holocene shells, for example on Store
Koldewey in Northeast Greenland (Hjort 1981) or on the north eastern Geographical
Society Ø in central East Greenland (Funder & Hjort 1973, Hjort 1981).
In order to better understand the past environmental and climatic history of East and
Northeast Greenland, extensive studies including palaeolimnological work,
Quaternary geological work, and the investigation of the recent existing lakes and
soils were carried out on Store Koldewey and Geographical Society Ø during the
expedition ARK XIX/4.
Geographical
Society Ø
Store
Koldewey
Fig. 6-1: Map of East and
Northeast Greenland. The
during the field season 2003
studied islands are encircled.
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