Abstract
In Iceland, there are numerous examples of glacier advances dated to the latter half of the last century. However, in marked contrast to the Alps and northern Europe, the record of historical-age moraines before ca. 1850 is rather sparse. This paper examines to what extent this pattern reflects the actual history of glacier fluctuations, and to what extent it could be a function of preservation and dating of the geomorphological record. Measurements of Rhizocarpon geographicum sp. lichen thalli on ice-marginal moraines and sandur form the basis for the late “Little Ice Age” glacial chronology in south Iceland. Recent studies have converged on the view of a maximum glacier extent in the late nineteenth century, and not during earlier and possibly colder parts of the “Little Ice Age”. Here, results of independent dating of moraine ridges and a jökulhlaup deposit demonstrate that conventional lichenometric techniques tend to cluster dates of these landforms to the 1860s–1880s, underestimating tephrochronological dates on the same landforms by > 100 yr in some cases. A mid-eighteenth century glacial maximum may be better represented in the landform record than hitherto thought, with implications for reconstruction of North Atlantic circulation patterns.
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Kirkbride, M.P., Dugmore, A.J. (2001). Can Lichenometry be Used to Date the “Little Ice Age” Glacial Maximum in Iceland?. In: Ogilvie, A.E.J., Jónsson, T. (eds) The Iceberg in the Mist: Northern Research in pursuit of a “Little Ice Age”. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3352-6_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3352-6_7
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