A high-resolution 1200-year lacustrine record of glacier and climate fluctuations in Lofoten, northern Norway

Here we present the first high-resolution late-Holocene glacier record from the Lofoten archipelago in northern Norway. The study is based on analyses of lacustrine sediments from the distal glacier-fed lake Kveitvikvatnet (30.1 m a.s.l.), as well as glacial-geomorphological mapping of the ~4.2-km2 surrounding catchment. The lake sediment cores have been examined for input of glacial-derived sediments by using physical, geochemical and magnetic sediment properties, including x-ray fluorescence (XRF), magnetic susceptibility (MS), grain size analyses, dry bulk density (DBD) and loss-on-ignition (LOI). Former glacier extent has been reconstructed using aerial photography and glacial-geomorphological mapping. Lichenometric dating has been used to construct a moraine chronology covering the recent fluctuations of the largest glacier (back to AD ~1740). AMS radiocarbon dating reveals that the lake sediment record covers the last 1200 years, thereby including both the ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA) and the ‘Medieval Cl...