A revised chronology for the 'Fjord Stade' moraine in Disko Bugt, west Greenland

This paper re-evaluates the age of the 'Fjord Stade' moraine in Disko Bugt, a large marine embayment in west Greenland. Previous work suggests that this moraine is part of a widespread moraine complex present throughout west Greenland, which formed ca. 9300 cal. yr BP in response to either a regional climate change or the effects of topographic controls on ice-sheet recession. We present the results of a relative sea-level study using data from eight isolation basins that straddle the 'Fjord Stade' moraine in southeast Disko Bugt. Our results suggest that the moraine here formed between ca. 8400 and 7700 cal. yr BP. This is later than previously thought, and similar in timing to a widespread cooling event recorded in the Greenland ice-core records. This chronological similarity raises the possibility that the 'Fjord Stade' moraine in the study area records an ice marginal response to a major short-lived climatic cooling during the early Holocene (the so-called '8200 event'). Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.