Younger Dryas-Preboreal moraines and deglaciation in southwestern Värmland, Sweden

In an area in southwesternmost Värmland, western Sweden, ice-marginal deposits have been mapped and studied. They can be correlated with the Norwegian Younger Dryas to Preboreal Ås, Ski and Aker ice-marginal ridges, and with lines of ice recession earlier constructed in Dalsland. Together they give valuable information about the mode of deglaciation in southern Scandinavia. They indicate a pattern of deglaciation with intense upbreaking by calving of the ice eastwards from the Oslo Fjord and northwards in the Vänern basin. This process caused a downdraw of ice around the highland between those areas. Ice streams and, later, valley glaciers were formed in the large Årjäng-Koppom and Glafsfjorden-Byälven valleys. Between them a lobe-shaped, stagnant ice cap was isolated from further supply from the main ice sheet in the north. This ice cap, here called the Dal lobe, wasted down with a complicated pattern from the west, south and east.