Dolomites in Arctic Ocean sediments are widely attributed to erosion and transport of sediments from northern Canada and Greenland. Coarse-grained dolomite-rich ice-rafted debris is often linked to iceberg transport, but the origin of fine-grained dolomite is less well constrained. A presumed source is the Mackenzie River. In this article, we fingerprint the minerogenic and isotopic (Nd and Sr) composition of deglacial and Holocene fine-grained sediments (<38 μm) from the shallow Mackenzie Trough. Sediments from an 81.5-m borehole (MTW01) were analyzed. The borehole is composed of a progradational (deltaic), transitional (transgressive), and marine unit (<9.4 cal. ka BP). The average dolomite content (~7 percent) and ɛ_Nd signals (−13.3) are surprisingly constant in the progradational and marine units. The isotopic signature is inherited from the Interior Platform, the major underlying bedrock region of the Mackenzie River mainstream. The transitional unit contains fluctuations in ɛ_Nd (−11.0 and −14.6), reflecting enhanced input from the North American Cordillera and Canadian Shield that are not associated with elevated amounts of dolomite. Additional studies combining minerogenic and detrital ɛ_Nd analyses from sites proximal to the paleo-icestreams draining the Canadian Arctic are required to ascertain the origin of dolomite enrichment in central Arctic Ocean sediments.

Groundwater discharge into lakes is an important component of the fluid and nutrient budgets, and a possible route for contaminant transport. However, groundwater flow beneath lakes is difficult to investigate due to the need for drilling deep boreholes. In 2012, a 2,000 m deep borehole was drilled in Lake Vättern, the second largest lake in Sweden. A continuous temperature profile was collected from the borehole. The geothermal gradient in the upper 180 m is highly non-linear, and not controlled by variability in the measured thermal properties of the sediments and rocks. The anomalous temperature profile is best explained by fluid flow into the borehole and subsequent vertical flow of warm waters towards the lake floor. Combining the temperature profile with stratigraphic information from drilling logs and seismic data, we find that fluid flow into the borehole occurs in glacial and glaciofluvial sediments deposited on top of a large sandstone aquifer (the Visingsö Group). The warm waters flowing through the glacial and glaciofluvial sediments are likely sourced from the underlying Visingsö Group sandstones. There is no evidence for substantial vertical migration of these waters through the overlying glacial and postglacial sediments. We speculate that they escape either along lake margins where overlying sediments become thinner, or along faults that are known to exist in the deeper basin.These results highlight an important hydraulic transport pathway between recognised regional aquifers and Lake Vättern. Further work is needed to evaluate the significance of groundwater discharge on the water and nutrient budget of the lake.

During and after deglaciation, Lake Vättern developed from a proglacial lake situated at the westernmost rim of the Baltic Ice Lake (BIL), into a brackish water body connecting the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, and finally into an isolated freshwater lake. Here we present geochemical and mineralogical data from a 70‐m composite sediment core recovered in southern Lake Vättern. Together with a radiocarbon age model of this core, we are able to delineate the character and timing of the different lake stages. In addition to a common mineralogical background signature seen throughout the sediment core, the proglacial sediments bear a calcite imprint representing ice‐sheet transported material from the limestone bedrock that borders the lake basin in the northeast. The proglacial fresh to brackish water transition is dated to 11 480±290 cal. a BP and is in close agreement with other regional chronologies. The brackish period lasted c. 300 years and was followed by a c. 1600 year freshwater period before the Vättern basin became isolated from the Initial Littorina Sea. Decreasing detrital input, increasing δ¹³C values and the appearance of diatoms in the upper 15 m of the sediment succession are interpreted as an overall increase in biological productivity. This mode of sedimentation continues until the present and is interpreted to mark the final isolation of the lake at 9530±50 cal. a BP. Consequently, the isolation of Lake Vättern was not an outcome of the Ancylus Lake regression, but rather because of ongoing continental uplift in the early Littorina period.

Lacustrine and marine sedimentary archives help unravel details concerning the withdrawal of large ice sheets and resulting sea-level changes during the last deglaciation (22 -11 kyr). In a series of four manuscripts, this PhD thesis investigates the sedimentological signatures from deglacial processes at three key locations in the northern hemisphere: (i) Lake Vättern (LV) in south-central Sweden, (ii) Herald Canyon (HC) in the western Chukchi Sea, and (iii) Mackenzie Trough (MT) on the westernmost edge of the Canadian Beaufort Shelf. One lacustrine (LV) and two marine (HC and MT) sediment cores were analyzed using a broad range of methods to describe the physical, chemical, mineralogical and biological characteristics, and used to construct paleoenvironmental interpretations.

Constituting the westernmost part of the Baltic Sea during parts of the last deglaciation, LV has long been envisaged as a key region for deglacial studies in southern Scandinavia. Sediments in LV highlight four major lake development stages following the withdrawal of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet. These include the Baltic Ice Lake, the Yoldia Sea, the Ancylus Lake and the ultimate isolated lake stage. New radiocarbon dates indicate that the lake became isolated at 9530±50 cal. yr BP. A sharp transition from a varved clay unit to a partly sulfide laminated clay unit marks the final drainage of the Baltic Ice Lake, dated to 11 650±280 cal. yr BP. However, an earlier peak in pore water chlorinity identified in the sediment provides the most compelling evidence to date for an initial drainage of the Baltic Ice Lake (~12.8 cal. kyr BP) near the onset of the Younger Dryas cold event.

Located downstream from where Pacific water flows into the Arctic, HC is a key location for understanding the details of the early Holocene (~11 cal. yr BP) flooding of the Bering Strait, and investigating sedimentological proxies for Pacific water in Arctic Ocean sediment cores. The deglacial transgression of the shelf and opening of the Bering Strait is reflected in the grain size and biogenic silica content from the HC sediment core. However, a clear Pacific water signature is not seen in the clay mineralogy which exhibits increased variability after the opening of the Bering Strait. This is interpreted as a combination of Pacific and East Siberian sources for bottom waters in HC. The absence of a clear Pacific water signature in the clay mineralogy highlights potential limitations to using this proxy in other records from the western Arctic.

Far field studies from the Arctic Ocean have argued that Mackenzie River sediments in Younger Dryas age sediments can be recognized by a unique mineral and isotopic composition, but no detailed proximal study of Mackenzie River sediments exists to support this assertion. The mineral and isotopic (Sr and Nd) studies presented in this thesis from the third of the key regions, the MT, fills this gap. The results show that the mineral assemblage and ɛ_Nd of fine fraction material remained relatively stable during the decay of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. An exception to this exists in a transitional sedimentary unit, deposited immediately after transgression at the site, and might be related to meltwater pulses associated with the drainage of the Lake Agassiz. The results suggest that the modern mineral and isotopic signature of Mackenzie River sediments may not be a suitable proxy for deglacial meltwater events in far field sedimentary records.

A 74-meter Late Pleistocene to Holocene sedimentary sequence was recovered from southern Lake Vattern in the autumn of 2012. At approximate to 54m below the lake floor, shear strength and high-resolution bulk density measurements suggest the presence of an unconformity in the varved proglacial clays. Incremental load consolidation tests reveal highly overconsolidated sediments below this level. Preconsolidation pressures for the underlying sediments are between 1250 and 2100kPa, up to approximate to 1700kPa more than the current in-situ effective stress. The highly overconsolidated sediments indicate either substantial erosion (the removal of 215-360m of sediment), or consolidation under a large grounded ice mass sitting up to 230m above paleo-lake level. Glaciotectonic deformation in underlying sediments supports the interpretation of a grounded ice mass. It is likely that this horizon is either contemporaneous with or older than the Levene moraine, formed between 13.4 and 13.8ka. In the approximate to 30m of overlying proglacial clays, there is no further evidence for grounded ice, indicating that any ice advance to southern Lake Vattern during the Younger Dryas would have been limited to an extremely thin ice tongue.

The withdrawal of the Late Weichselian ice sheet and rapid isostatic uplift in southern Scandinavia led to the entrainment of large volumes of melt water within the proglacial Baltic Ice Lake (BIL). The eventual western outpost of BIL, Lake Vattern, has been a focal point for studying the dynamic retreat history of the Late Weichselian ice sheet in south central Sweden. This part of the deglacial history is described from an abundance of terrestrial studies, but, to date, no complimentary long sediment cores from Lake Vattern have been available. Here, we present the results from a unique, 74m borehole in southern Lake Vattern that recovered a Late Pleistocene to Holocene sedimentary sequence. Physical and chemical analyses of the sediment and pore water, together with geophysical mapping, reveal glacial as well as postglacial imprints implying an oscillating ice sheet margin, evidence for neotectonic activity and one or more marine incursions into the lake during deglaciation. We attribute the glaciotectonic deformation of the sediments at 54m below the lake floor to an ice readvance that likely occurred at the same time or before the advance that formed the Levene moraine (approximate to 13.8-13.4cal.kaBP). After this event, potential readvances were likely restricted to a more northerly position in the basin. We identify the final drainage of the BIL, but find evidence for an earlier marine incursion into the Vattern basin (approximate to 13.0cal.kaBP), indicating water exchange between the North Atlantic and the Baltic Ice Lake during the late Allerod.

Lake Vättern represents a critical region geographically and dynamically in the deglaciation of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet. The outlet glacier that occupied the basin and its behaviour during ice-sheet retreat were key to the development and drainage of the Baltic Ice Lake, dammed just west of the basin, yet its geometry, extent, thickness, margin dynamics, timing and sensitivity to regional retreat forcing are rather poorly known. The submerged sediment archives of Lake Vättern represent a missing component of the regional Swedish deglaciation history. Newly collected geophysical data, including high-resolution multibeam bathymetry of the lake floor and seismic reflection profiles of southern Lake Vättern, are used here together with a unique 74-m sediment record recently acquired by drill coring, and with onshore LiDAR-based geomorphological analysis, to investigate the deglacial environments and dynamics in the basin and its terrestrial environs. Five stratigraphical units comprise a thick subglacial package attributed to the last glacial period (and probably earlier), and an overlying > 120-m deglacial sequence. Three distinct retreat-re-advance episodes occurred in southern Lake Vättern between the initial deglaciation and the Younger Dryas. In the most recent of these, ice overrode proglacial lake sediments and re-advanced from north of Visingsö to the southern reaches of the lake, where ice up to 400 m thick encroached on land in a lobate fashion, moulding crag-and-tail lineations and depositing till above earlier glacifluvial sediments. This event precedes the Younger Dryas, which our data reveal was probably restricted to north-central sectors of the basin. These dynamics, and their position within the regional retreat chronology, indicate a highly active ice margin during deglaciation, with retreat rates on average 175 m a(-1). The pronounced topography of the Vättern basin and its deep proglacial-dammed lake are likely to have encouraged the dynamic behaviour of this major Fennoscandian outlet glacier.

Lake Vattern, Sweden, is within a graben that formed through rifting along the boundary between two Precambrian terrains. Geophysical mapping and geological coring show that substantial tectonic movements along the Lake Vattern graben occurred at the very onset of the Holocene. This is evident from deformation structures in the soft sediment accumulated on the lake floor. Our interpretation of these structures suggests as much as 13 m of vertical tectonic displacements along sections of a >80-km-long fault system. If these large displacements are from one tectonic event, Lake Vattern must have had an earthquake with seismic moment magnitudes to 7.5. In addition, our geophysical mapping shows large landslides along sections of the steep lake shores. Pollen analysis of sediment infillings of some of the most prominent sediment deformation structures places this major seismic event at the Younger Dryas-Preboreal transition, ca. 11.5 ka. We suggest that this event is mainly related to the rapid release of ice-sheet load following the deglaciation. This paleoseismic event in Lake Vattern ranks among the larger known intraplate tectonic events in Scandinavia and attests to the significance of glacio-isostatic unloading.