Weichselian glaciation

[6] According to this view any closing of the Bering Strait that blockades the entering of North Pacific water to the Arctic Ocean would have been detrimental for the inception of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet.

[6] Jan Mangerud posits that parts of the Norwegian coast were likely free from glacier ice during most of the Weichselian prior to the Last Glacial Maximum.

The interstadial receives its name from the Ålesund municipality in Norway where its existence was first established based on the local fossil record of shells.

[9] By circa 26 ka BP, the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet reached the mid-Norwegian continental shelf break.

This means that in areas like north-east Sweden and northern Finland pre-existing landforms and deposits escaped glacier erosion and are particularly well preserved at present.

[12] Also during times of maximum extent the ice sheet terminated to the east in a gently uphill terrain meaning that rivers drained into the glacier front and large proglacial lakes built up.

In Eastern Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Pskov Oblast in Russia the ice sheet reached its maximum extent about 19 ka BP.

By this time, most of Götaland, Gotland, all of the Baltic states and the southeastern coast of Finland had been added to the ice-free regions.

Before the Younger Dryas, deglaciation had not been uniform and small ice sheet re-advances had occurred forming a series of end-moraine systems, notably those in Götaland.

The northern centre remained a few hundred years more so that by 9.7 ka BP the eastern Sarek Mountains hosted the last remnant of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet.

[17] Isostatic adjustment bought by deglaciation is reflected in the shoreline changes of the Baltic Sea and other nearby bodies of water.

Within the High Coast the relict shoreline at 286 m in Skuleberget is at present the highest known point on Earth to have been uplifted by postglacial isostatic rebound.

This significant turning point in average temperatures marked the end of the Eemian interglacial and start of the Weichselian glacial stage.

Following the last of these cold periods, the Younger Dryas, the Weichselian Glacial ended with an abrupt climb in temperature around 9,660 ± 40 BC.

Europe during the Weichselian and Würm cold periods
Maximum extent of the ice (Brandenburg Stage) during the Weichselian in Germany and Poland (red line).
Greatest extent of the older Saalian glaciation (yellow line).
Note that the coastlines are modern; coastlines during the Weichselian were different as sea level was lower.
17.-18.000 year old fossils of marine mammals from below the retreating Scandinavian Ice Sheet in Denmark, Copenhagen Zoological Museum
Map of the Littorina Sea around 7000 years BP. Note the reduced area of Finland due to higher sea levels.
Depiction of the Earth at the last glacial maximum. Illustration based on: Ice age terrestrial carbon changes revisited by Thomas J. Crowley (Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Vol. 9, 1995, pp. 377–389)
Weichselian Late Glacial with mid-European culture groups