Morphosedimentological dynamics and coastal evolution in the Kongsfjorden area, Spitsbergen

This article presents the results of recent geomorphological investigations on coastal terraces in the Kongsfjorden area, northwestern Spitsbergen, by the Laboratory of the Geography of the Sea, University of Brest, France. The work concerns present‐day morphosedimentological processes in beach environments and vertical shoreline displacements during the Holocene. Along the fronts of fluvioglacial outwash plains, the rate of alluvial accretion is very high. The multiple beach ridges in the inner Kongsfjorden area are young, the older ones having been built up at the end of the Little Ice Age. At the tip of the Br⊘gger Peninsula, offshore bars are affected by overwash processes. This induces an inland migration of the bars, resulting in the uncovering of periglacial patterns in the subtidal zone. These periglacial patterns were submerged during a marine transgression. Radiocarbon dates reveal that the emergence of the land continued after 9000 B.P. and that sea level fell below its present position after that time. Subsequently a marine transgression occurred, beginning before 2100 B.P.