Late Glacial to Holocene Sea Level History of Kapp Linné, Svalbard, Norwegian High Arctic

Understanding how modern ice sheets and sea level will respond to climate change in the 21st Century will require knowledge of past glacier-sea level interaction in the polar regions. The aim of this study is to reconstruct the postglacial relative sea level history of Kapp Linné, located on the western coast of Svalbard. The reconstruction of post-glacial sea level is accomplished by determining the elevation of raised paleo shorelines formed during postglacial isostatic rebound.A relative sea level curve from the Kapp Linné region is constrained by radiometric dating of boulders and by AMS 14C dating of marine bivalves in lower elevation marine deltaic and beach deposits.The age of the oldest, raised shoreline associated with deglaciation, marine limit at 70 m asl, was determined using10Be ages of quartzite boulders (14.9 ± 0.6 ka). 14.9 ± 0.6 ka is contemporaneous with local deglaciation 15-14 ka (Hormes et al., 2013). After deglaciation and the formation of marine limit, sea level fell due to the onset of glacio-isostatic rebound, allowing another raised cobble shoreline to form at 55-57 m asl (13.3 ± 0.6 ka (n=3)). After the formation of the 55-57 m asl shoreline, sea level once again fell through the Holocene. Regression during the Holocene is constrained by lower elevation raised marine deposits in the valley, including a delta in at 41 m asl 11.26 ± 0.7 ka, a raised beach at 34 m asl 11.24 ± 0.7 ka, and a lower shoreline at 24 m asl 11.0 ± 0.6ka