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1 Department of Outdoor Education and Science, I.M. Marsh Campus, Liverpool Polytechnic, Barkhill Road, Liverpool, L17 6BD, UK
2 Department of Civil Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, UK
Skjoldungebrae gorge sections have allowed a reconstruction of changing sedimentological and palaeoecological environments during the early Holocene in the Kap Petersen area of North Scoresby Land. There is evidence for a former morainal bank and associated glacimarine environments at the grounding line of the early Holocene tidewater Skjoldungebrae. The sequence has been subdivided into: bergstone/suspension, laminite, proximal morainal bank avalanche, distal submarine fan and proximal submarine fan glacimarine facies. There are three molluscan and three foraminiferal assemblages present which indicate likely palaeotemperatures, salinities and water depths. Evidence suggests that sea level fell from 105 m to 77.5 m and as it did so modified the tidewater glacimarine sequence. A readvance of Kong Oscar Fjord ice reworked part of the glacimarine sequence and deposited a basal till over the lower slopes of the Kap Petersen area and in lower Skeldal. Criteria used to distinguish between till and various diamictons are discussed.
