Ljerka Marjanac

Glacial history of the Croatian Adriatic and Coastal Dinarides

The study of Quaternary has been recently focussed on the northern part of Croatian Adriatic coasts and islands. The results of detailed sedimentological research indicate extensive glaciation during Middle Pleistocene or even Early Pleistocene, although the stratigraphy is still tentative due to lack of adequate material for dating, and due to the fact that most of the sophisticated analyses are not available in Croatia. The boundary of Weichselian glacial maximum is set approximately at 800 ms above the modern sea level and refers to Early or Middle Weichselian. It was not possible to define LGM boundaries in spite of some indications on the Risnjak Mt. The limit of Pleistocene glacial maximum, referring to Mindel or Riss, is tentative and based mainly on kame-terrace locations on the Krk and Pag islands and glacial and periglacial deposits at Novigradsko more. The older Pleistocene ice-dammed lakes are also presented on the map, marking the trail of a large, more than 50 km long glacier which is attributed to Mindel or Riss glaciation. There are fifteen key sections marked on the map which provide evidence of glaciation of Croatian Adriatic and Croatian External Dinarides.