Elsevier

Quaternary Science Reviews

Volume 251, 1 January 2021, 106716
Quaternary Science Reviews

Revised Middle and Late Pleistocene interglacial and interstadial records from the glaciated eastern Fennoscandia

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106716Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Eastern Fennoscandian glacial depositional record extend to Middle Pleistocene.

  • Glacial sequence stratigraphy reveal glaciofluvial reworking of interglacial organics.

  • Reworked Holsteinian and Röpersdorf-Schöningen? interglacial records in Finland.

  • Continental boreal forests in Finland during Röpersdorf-Schöningen? interglacial.

  • Open tundra birch forests widespread in Fennoscandia during Brörup interstadial.

Abstract

The Middle to Late Pleistocene palaeoenvironmental record from the repeatedly glaciated central and eastern Fennoscandia is poorly known. The majority of the glacial and warm interval records have been interpreted to represent only the last, Weichselian, glacial cycle (119–11.7 ka). We have revised the crucial part of the existing stratigraphic documentation in central and southern Finland. Our findings show that a considerable part of the depositional record extends further back in time and is more complete than previously thought. One record may reach the Middle Pleistocene Holsteinian Interglacial (≈MIS 11), 424-374 ka ago, and a large number of records are tentatively attributed to the Middle Pleistocene Röpersdorf-Schöningen Interglacial (≈MIS 7) 243-191 ka ago. During this possible Röpersdorf-Schöningen Interglacial, the Gulf of Bothnia hosted larger alkaline and smaller dystrophic lakes surrounded by boreal pine forests in a continental climate with warmer summers and colder winters than today. The Eemian (≈MIS 5e) 131-119 ka sea coastal records show detailed evidence of the widespread intermixing of continental fresh and marine waters. During the Early Weichselian Brörup Interstadial (≈MIS 5c) 109-96 ka, central and southern Finland seem to have supported open birch forest tundra, later invaded by spruce; not boreal pine forest as earlier thought. The early birch vegetation faced a tundra phase which may be the Montaigu cooling event c. 103 ka ago. The revised palaeoenvironmental interpretation shows that the development during the three discussed warmer intervals is well in line with the central European vegetational development. Our palaeoenvironmental interpretations concerning Röpersdorf-Schöningen and Brörup warm intervals are preliminary and will need further investigations. No indisputable Middle Weichselian (≈MIS 3, 57-29 ka) sedimentary record seems to have been recorded in the studied area.

Introduction

In the central non-glaciated lowlands of Europe, the palaeoenvironmental, vegetational and chronological development through the Middle and Late Pleistocene (774–11.7 ka ago) cold glacial periods and warmer interglacial/interstadial periods (MIS 19-2) is relatively well-known (Behre, 1989; Zagwijn, 1989, 1992; Reille et al., 1998; Turner, 1998; de Beaulieu et al., 2001; Caspers and Freund, 2001; Guiter et al., 2003; Tzedakis et al., 2004; Ber, 2005; Desprat et al., 2007; Müller and Sánchez Goñi, 2007; Gibbard and West, 2020). However, within the repeatedly glaciated NW European Fennoscandia, there is much less knowledge of the palaeoenvironments during the interglacials/interstadials. In the glaciated areas, subglacial erosion together with subaerial erosion partly driven by glacio-isostatic uplift during the interglacials/interstadials has left a vertically and laterally fragmented sedimentary record.

The prevailing view in recent decades has been that in terrestrial Fennoscandia the oldest known warm interval records are from the Holsteinian Interglacial [≈MIS 11, 424-374 ka (Lisiecki and Raymo, 2005; MIS boundary ages from Lisiecki, 2005 https://www.lorraine-lisiecki.com/LR04_MISboundaries.txt),]. Three localities have been reported: Öje and Snickarekullen in Sweden (Garcia Ambrosiani and Robertsson, 1998; Garcia Ambrosiani et al., 1998) and Naakenavaara in N Finland (Aalto et al., 1992). Until now no record of the Hoogeveen-Reinsdorf Interglacial (Urban, 1995; ≈MIS 9, 337-300 ka) has been reported in Fennoscandia. Deposits correlated with the Röpersdorf-Schöningen Interglacial (Cohen and Gibbard, 2011; ≈MIS 7, 243-191 ka) have been found and dated using OSL together with biostratigraphic data at Sargejohka (Olsen and Selvik, 1995), and dated by amino acid geochronology at Grødeland in southwestern Norway (Sejrup et al., 1999). In Finland, two localities, Virtasalmi (Nenonen, 1995) and Lappajärvi (Salonen et al., 1992), both with biostratigraphic data but no datings, have been tentatively correlated to this interglacial. Recently, Putkinen et al. (2020) applied OSL dating to reworked glaciolacustrine sediments within Weichselian till at Äältövittikot, Finnish Lapland, and found the dates to indicate this interglacial.

Both marine and continental records from the Eemian Interglacial (≈MIS 5e, 130-119 ka) are relatively abundant in central and southern Finland (cf. Grönlund, 1991; Eriksson, 1993). A large number of records have been correlated with the Early Weichselian Brörup (≈MIS 5c, 109-96 ka) and/or Odderade interstadial (≈MIS 5a, 82-71 ka, cf. Donner, 1983; Forsström, 1988; Lunkka et al., 2016) and a growing number also to the Middle Weichselian interstadial (≈MIS 3, 57-29 ka, Nenonen, 1995; Salonen et al., 2008; Sarala et al., 2016).

In Finland, our revision concerns the eastern Ostrobothnian shore of the Gulf of Bothnia. The area has long been known for its Saalian eskers and other glaciofluvial formations thinly covered by Weichselian till(s) (Niemelä and Tynni, 1979). It has been earlier shown by Räsänen et al. (2015) that the crucial part of the records in this region traditionally correlated with the Brörup/Odderade interstadial (Donner, 1983; Forsström, 1988; Nenonen, 1995) are instead composed of pre-Saalian organic debris redeposited proglacially in a glaciolacustrine environment by subglacial meltwaters during the Saalian deglaciation. In the present revision, we further analyse the nature of these redeposited organics and their micro- and macrofossil content. In one case at Hietamäki (Eriksson and Kujansuu, 1994) Holsteinian (≈MIS 11)/Hoogeveen-Reinsdorf? (≈MIS 9) redeposited organics are possibly present in the Saalian/Fuhne deglacial sedimentary succession. It should however be noted that the major part of the redeposited organics, by their micro- and macrofossil content and stratigraphic position, show a more likely correlation with the NW European Röpersdorf-Schöningen Interglacial (≈MIS 7). The number of records is sufficiently great that it enables us to present an outline of the palaeovegetational and -climatic reconstruction for NW Europe and Fennoscandia around the time of climatic optimum of this interglacial. This is the first and preliminary reconstruction for the Röperdorf-Schöningen interglacial in Fennoscandia and intended to stimulate scientific discussion.

The earlier revision (Räsänen et al., 2015) also noted that Eemian marine offshore, shoreface and foreshore deposits are more often present in the stratigraphic successions in Ostrobothnia than originally reported. By analysing the reported micro- and macrofossil content of these deposits, we have been able to describe some hydrological features of the Eemian coastal Baltic sea palaeoenvironments. These analyses enable us to show that the four records from Ostrobothnia that earlier have been interpreted to represent Middle Weichselian interstadial deposits (≈MIS 3, 57-29 ka, Nenonen, 1995; Salonen et al., 2008; Lunkka et al., 2016), instead represent Eemian offshore, shoreface and foreshore deposition.

According to our revision, there are almost no Early Weichselian Brörup/Odderade records published from Ostrobothnia or S Finland. Only the data from Björkö (Auri, 2006; Ovaskainen, 2011), which show a lacustrine pollen succession with two Betula-dominated warm intervals interrupted with a colder period, may be considered an Early Weichselian record. This succession shows namely striking similarities with the pollen successions from Brumunddal, S Norway (Helle et al., 1981), and Pilgrimstad (cf. Wohlfarth et al., 2011), Långsele (Sundius and Sandegren, 1948) and Härnösand (Garcia Ambrosiani and Robertsson, 1992) in central Sweden. All five localities are within the 61st and 63rd latitude, and the Norwegian and Swedish localities have long been correlated with the Brörup Interstadial, and the youngest part of deposits at Pilgrimstad also with the Middle Weichselian MIS 3 (Wohlfarth et al., 2011). On the basis of the pollen succession, we suggest that the Björkö lacustrine deposits most likely describe the vegetational succession during the Brörup interstadial.

Section snippets

Material and methods

The data from the three revised stratigraphies of greatest importance for our reconstruction of the proposed Röpersdorf-Schöningen Interglacial conditions and the characterisation of the Eemian coastal palaeoenvironments are described in the following. The three localities are Oulainen, Harrinkangas and Horonkylä. In addition, the Mertuanoja site is presented to further demonstrate the litho- and biostratigraphic characteristics of the Eemian coastal shoreface successions and our conclusion

Glacial systems tracts at Oulainen

The data from Oulainen has been published by Forsström (1982, 1991), Donner (1983), Jungner (1987), Punkari (1991), Nenonen (1995) and Räsänen et al. (2015). Three glacial STs can be distinguished at Oulainen (Fig. 2). At the base is the Saalian glacial retreat systems tract (GRST), overlain by the Eemian glacial minimum systems tract (GMiST), and finally the Weichselian glacial maximum systems tract (GMaST).

In the Saalian GRST at the base of section A there is a proglacially and subaquatically

Conclusions

We have undertaken a major revision of the Quaternary stratigraphy of western and southern Finland by applying an integrated sequence stratigraphic analysis of all existing litho- and biostratigraphic data from numerous localities from a relatively large but glaciohistorically uniform Ostrobothnian area. The results show that a “local sequence stratigraphic model” can be established. This closely resembles the Late Wisconsinian deglacial models described for example from the Canadian shield (

Funding

This work was supported by Academy of Finland, Finland grant no. 128436.

Credit author statement

All authors have made substantial contributions to the submission. Matti E. Räsänen has done the large scale review and written the manuscript and made most of the interpretations. Jaakko Auri has done the micro- and macrofossil analysis of the Björkö gyttja deposit and interpreted its palaeovegetational evolution. MR and JA have together agreed of the most likely biostratigraphic correlation of the Björkö gyttja deposit. Juha Ovaskainen did the beetle analysis and calculated the

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

We thank Pekka Niemelä for discussions on vegetation nomenclature and the two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their helpful comments on the manuscript. The readability and quality of the manuscript was improved by the language checking and comments by Adrian Read for which we are very grateful.

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    1

    present address: Vapparintie 732, 20960 Turku, FINLAND.

    2

    present address: Geological Survey of Finland, Vuorimiehentie 5, P.O. Box 96, FI-02151 Espoo, FINLAND.

    3

    present address: Vapo Group, P.O. Box 22, Yrjönkatu 42, FI-40101 Jyväskylä, FINLAND.

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