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Palaeohydrology pp 29–47Cite as

Flooding Northern Germany: Impacts and Magnitudes of Middle Pleistocene Glacial Lake-Outburst Floods

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Part of the book series: Geography of the Physical Environment ((GEOPHY))

Abstract

The major objective of this study is to summarise the routing and impact of lake-outburst floods along the south-western margin of the Middle Pleistocene (Saalian) Fennoscandian ice sheet . We provide an overview about the spatial and temporal evolution and drainage history of ice-dammed lakes in northern Germany . The repeated drainage of these ice-dammed lakes contributed to the destabilisation of the ice margin and triggered ice-streaming and/or local re-advances. Major flood-related channels became part of the ice-marginal drainage system during the decay of the Saalian ice sheets . The most proximal lake-outburst flood drainage routes are characterised by deep plunge pools, channels, megaflutes, scour pools and streamlined hills cut into Pleistocene deposits and Cenozoic and Mesozoic bedrock. Depositional features include large sand and gravel bars and fields of sandy bedforms deposited by supercritical to subcritical flows. The clast composition of bars commonly indicates a strong reworking and redeposition of local fluvial and colluvial material, partly rich in mammoth bones. To quantify flow characteristics during glacial lake-outburst floods , 2D hydraulic simulations were conducted for different ice-margin configurations and flood hydrographs. Subsequently, the model outcomes were compared with the sedimentological and geomorphological evidence for the lake-drainage events in order to estimate the most likely flood pathways, the impact of the flood on erosion, sediment distribution and post-glacial landscape evolution.

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Acknowledgements

Parts of this study were funded in the framework of the “Wege in die Forschung” programme by Leibniz Universität Hannover (project title: “Mittelpleistozäne Megafluten in Norddeutschland: Auswirkungen und Magnituden”; Grant No. II-05-2014-05) and by MWK Niedersachsen Project (11.2-76202-17-7/08). Hill-shaded relief maps were produced using Copernicus data and information funded by the European Union (EU-DEM layers).

We thank LBEG (Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Bergbau, Energie und Geologie) and GD NRW for providing borehole data and unpublished subsurface maps and Fugro Consult GmbH for providing GeODin software for data management. The manuscript benefited from the discussion with A. Lenz and M. Dölling. Constructive comments by J. Herget and an anonymous reviewer are highly appreciated and helped to improve the manuscript. Many thanks are also due to the owners of the open-pits for permitting us to work on their properties.

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  1. Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institut für Geologie, Callinstr. 30, 30167, Hannover, Germany

    Jutta Winsemann & Jörg Lang

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  1. Jutta Winsemann
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Correspondence to Jutta Winsemann .

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  1. Department of Geography, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Jürgen Herget

  2. Dipartimento di Geoscienze, Università degli Studi di Padova, Padua, Italy

    Alessandro Fontana

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Winsemann, J., Lang, J. (2020). Flooding Northern Germany: Impacts and Magnitudes of Middle Pleistocene Glacial Lake-Outburst Floods. In: Herget, J., Fontana, A. (eds) Palaeohydrology. Geography of the Physical Environment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23315-0_2

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