Jakob J. Møller

Shoreline relation and prehistoric settlement in northern Norway

Moller, J. J. 1987. Shoreline relation and prehistoric settlement in northern Norway. Norsk geogr. Tidsskr. Vol. 41, 45–60. Oslo. ISSN 0029-1951. A shoreline relation diagram for northern Norway has been constructed. The age of the shorelines represents a maximum dating for the prehistoric shore-related settlements of the region during various periods. A correlation with 64 14C-dates from Finnmark shows that 9 settlements, represented by 61 dates, were located 1.9–9.5 m, average 4.8 m, above the reconstructed contemporaneous sea-level in a landscape having a gradient <200m/km. In Troms and Nordland there is a greater variation in altitude. The Tapes transgression (9000–6000 B.P.) inundated the shore-related settlements in the outer coastal areas. This is probably the reason why older stone age sites are not found in Lofoten and Vesteralen. Such an inundated site is probably found in Hellefjord in Finnmark.

Emergence of the Varanger Peninsula, Arctic Norway, and climate changes since deglaciation

Fields of glacioisostatically uplifted beach ridges on the eastern Varanger Peninsula coast in northern Norway record the occurrence of major storms since deglaciation. More than 70 radiocarbon dates of palaeoshoreline indicators establish the Late Weichselian and Holocene history of beach-ridge building and relative sea-level change. Optimal ridge-building in the region requires sustained, strong easterlies driving high waves across the Barents Sea. Such winds occur when low pressure systems are forced across the North Sea and the Baltic landmass to the region of the Gulf of Bothnia and the Kola Peninsula. This situation probably frequently occurs during transition periods from milder to cooler climate in the region. The beach-ridge morphology reveals a fall of local sea level following the stormy episodes. Over the short term, this is related to the end of storm-induced set-up and the termination of mild-phase-related warm coastal currents. Over the long term, local sea-level falls with the onset of sustained calm winter-type conditions and continued glacioisostatic uplift. Pre- and early-Holocene changes in climate regime occurred with a frequency of several decades to several centuries. The mid- to late-Holocene records show increased climatic stability, transitions occurring with less frequency, and mild phases frequently lasting many hundreds of years.

Postglacial relative sea-level change and stratigraphy of raised coastal basins on Kola Peninsula, northwest Russia

A relative sea-level curve for the Holocene is constructed for Polyarny on the Kola Peninsula, northwest Russia. The curve is based on 18 radiocarbon dates of isolation contacts, identified from lithological and diatomological criteria, in nine lake basins situated between 12 and 57 m a.s.l. Most of the lakes show a conformable, regressive I–II–III (marine–transitional–freshwater) facies succession, indicating a postglacial history comprising an early (10,000–9000 radiocarbon years BP) phase of rapid, glacio-isostatically induced emergence (∼5 cm year−1) and a later phase (after 7000 years BP,) having a moderate rate of emergence (<0.5 cm year−1). Three lakes together record a phase of very low rate of emergence or slight sea-level rise at a level of ∼27 m a.s.l., between 8500 and 7000 years BP, which correlates with the regional Tapes transgression. Pollen stratigraphy in the highest lake shows that the area was deglaciated before the Younger Dryas and that previously reconstructed Younger Dryas glacier margins along the north Kola coast lie too far north.

Holocene transgression maximum about 6000 years BP at Ramså, Vesterålen, North Norway

Lithostratigraphic investigations, pollen and diatom analysis, and 14C datings of three sections at Ramsa on Andoy in Vesteralen indicate an age of c. 6000 BP for the Holocene (Tapes) transgression maximum. Two dates from Lofoten (Leknes and Eggum) give a similar age.

Submerged littoral sediments, beach ridges and wave­ cut platforms off Troms, North Norway: revisiting old questions

Reinterpretation of sea-floor morphology and modelling of Weichselian relative sea-level history on the continental shelf off Troms suggest that beach-like features and sandy basins are unlikely to have been formed primarily by littoral processes. Sea-floor sand transportation has probably been caused by bottom currents, which still flow today. Two seaward-dipping platforms, one at 50-110 m and one at 75-130 m depth on Sveinsgrunnen, Malangsgrunnen and Nordvestbanken, have previously been interpreted as wave-cut platforms. Their gradients are approximately parallel and 50 and 75 m deeper, respectively, than the extrapolated Late Weichselian North Andoy Shoreline (NAS). These platforms therefore seem to be older features, most likely formed mainly by glacial erosion and accumulation processes during the Pleistocene.

Lightning and special peat bog phenomena on Andøya,northern Norway

In 1982 a c.5 m2 slab of peat, c.25 cm thick, was discovered on a peat bog on the island of Andøya in northern Norway. The peat slab, which weighed c.1 ton, was found 4 m to 5 m from a hole having precisely the same shape. Investigations on Andøya to date have provided information on six quite similar phenomena with slab weights varying between 100 kg and 4 tons. Outside Andøya, five similar phenomena have been recorded in Norway, and pieces of earth displaced from their original locations have been reported in Britain, Germany and the United States. Lightning is hypothesized to have caused these phenomena.