Late-Quaternary Sediment Cores from Lakes on Bjørnøya

Sediment cores were collected from 18 lakes on Bjørnøya at different altitudes between 10–100 m a.s.l. Four cores were analysed in greater detail for pollen and diatoms, and radiocarbon analyses were made on three horizons in one of the cores. In most cases, the sediment sequence consisted of a bed of 1–3 m of silty lake muds underlain by thin layers of silts and clayey silts of lacustrine or sterile character. A tripartite pollen stratigraphy could be established, and the cores were correlated on this basis. The transition from the basal silts to the muds appears more or less synchronous in all the cores and probably reflects the end of glacial conditions on the island. An age of about 10.000 radiocarbon years is suggested for this. As only lacustrine deposits were formed in the basins investigated, very little, if any, negative shore-line displacement can have occurred on Bjørnøya since the deglaciation.