Quaternary glaciations and their variations in Norway and on the Norwegian continental shelf Lars Olsen1, Harald Sveian1, Bjørn Bergstrøm1, Dag Ottesen1,2 and Leif Rise1 1Geological Survey of Norway, Postboks 6315 Sluppen, 7491 Trondheim, Norway. 2Present address: Exploro AS, Stiklestadveien 1a, 7041 Trondheim, Norway. E-mail address (corresponding author):
[email protected] In this paper our present knowledge of the glacial history of Norway is briefly reviewed. Ice sheets have grown in Scandinavia tens of times during the Quaternary, and each time starting from glaciers forming initial ice-growth centres in or not far from the Scandes (the Norwegian and Swedish mountains). During phases of maximum ice extension, the main ice centres and ice divides were located a few hundred kilometres east and southeast of the Caledonian mountain chain, and the ice margins terminated at the edge of the Norwegian continental shelf in the west, well off the coast, and into the Barents Sea in the north, east of Arkhangelsk in Northwest Russia in the east, and reached to the middle and southern parts of Germany and Poland in the south. Interglacials and interstadials with moderate to minimum glacier extensions are also briefly mentioned due to their importance as sources for dateable organic as well as inorganic material, and as biological and other climatic indicators. Engabreen, an outlet glacier from Svartisen (Nordland, North Norway), which is the second largest of the c. 2500 modern ice caps in Norway. Present-day glaciers cover to- gether c. 0.7 % of Norway, and this is less (ice cover) than during >90–95 % of the Quater nary Period in Norway.