Late Quaternary Coastal Records of Rapid Changes the Eastern Baltic

Abstract

In the eastern Baltic area, comprising the countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and the St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad Districts of Russia, there are a lot of phenomena suggesting rapid changes in sea level due to different factors. At the end of the Pleistocene, the present-day Baltic Sea was a big Ice-dammed (local Ice lakes) or Ice-influenced (Baltic Ice Lake) lake with complicated water-level fluctuations. The drop of the Baltic Ice Lake at Billingen in Central Sweden about 10,300 yr BP resulted in the drainage of 25-30 m. A typical freshwater Ancylus Lake mollusk fauna discovered beneath the brackish water Litorina Sea mollusc fauna in a tectonically rising area near the settlement of Partsi on the island of Hiiumaa, Estonia, provides evidence of the catastrophic lowering of the water level by at least 25-30 m at the end of the Ancylus stage about 8500 yr BP.