RECONSTRUCTION OF THE LAST POST-PLEISTOCENE GLACIATION OF THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE (18-20 THOUSAND YEARS AGO)

Abstract

The principal phases in the development of the Late Valdai, Late Weichselian, and Late Wisconsin glaciations coincided with a global cooling maximum 18-20 thousand years ago. In recent years, new data allowing to more definitively reconstruct the dynamics and distribution of the last glaciation in the Northern Hemisphere have been obtained for the regions of Northern Eurasia and North America. These are primarily the results of glaciomorphological and lithological investigations, radiocarbon studies of sediments near the glacier margins, and paleontological and seismoacoustic data [3-5]. According to these data, the last terrestrial glaciation can be reconstructed as a system of independent ice sheets with complex spatiotemporal dynamics.