THE LATE PLEISTOCENE PALEOGEOGRAPHY OF ARCTIC EURASIAN SHELVES

The Arctic continental shelves of Russia and Scandinavia were affected to different degrees by glacial activity during the Late Pleistocene. Typical glacial shelves, with grounded ice sheets, were confined to t he Barents and Norwegian Seas. Moraines and glaciated troughs on these shelves can be recognized through seismic analysis, and were produced by glacial advances from Scandinavia, the Kola Peninsula, and Novaya Zemlya. Glacio-marine shelves, located over the Murmansk Ridge, the Ka nin Shelf, and in the central Barents Sea Shelf, were marked by the pr evalence of floating pack ice. The eastern regions of the Arctic coast al shelves, in the Chukchi and East Siberian Seas and adjacent to Beri ngia, were periglacial, effectively subaerially exposed as a result of marine regression. Submerged marine terraces are present to depths of 50 m below present sea level. The areally restricted distribution of glacial features, and the presence of non-glacial marine sediments on the shelves offshore of northern Yakutia and in the Chukchi Sea, argue against the concept of widespread Pan-Arctic glaciation during the La te Pleistocene. (C) 1997 INQUA/Elsevier Science Ltd.