Erdmannflya, Svalbard: a High Arctic Holocene supersite 

<p>The coasts of western Spistbergen, Svalbard, present a world-class opportunity to investigate integrated records of High Arctic Holocene landscape and climate change including ice margin retreat and fluctuation, glacioisostatic emergence, paraglacial landscape and coastal responses, lacustrine evolution, and Holocene climate fluctuation. On the northern side of Isfjorden and with easy access from the town of Longyearbyen (45 minutes by boat), the Erdmannflya lowland and adjacent mountains between the glaciated fjords of Borebukta and Ymerbukta are a classic example of such tightly coupled landscape archives. Marked by prominent raised beach sequences, multiple Neoglacial moraines, and thick lacustrine sediment accumulations, Erdmannflya is the subject of ongoing interdisciplinary investigations as part of the internationally collaborative SHERBET project with researchers from Norwegian (UNIS, UiB, NGU, NTNU, NPI), British (Bangor University), Polish (Adam Mickiewicz University) and American (Bates College) institutions, including multiple Bachelors, Masters, and PhD projects. The aim of this initiative is to derive a detailed Late Pleistocene and Holocene history of the area in order to elucidate broader questions of High Arctic landscape, cryospheric, and marine responses to changing Late Quaternary climate.</p><p><br>Completed and ongoing work includes:<br>•   determination of multiple climatically-asynchronous overlapping Neoglacial ice advances onto the northern end of the lowland.<br>•   revised deglacial marine limits and Holocene isostatically-forced sea level curves coupled with very high-resolution geomorphic mapping of raised beach terraces that challenges early interpretations of a Mid Holocene marine transgression in central Isfjorden.<br>•   recovery and analyses of detailed Little Ice Age sediment core records from the moraine-dammed lake Straumsjøen, including the identification of prominent niveo-aeolian episodes.<br>•   biogeochemical and sclerochronological investigation of early Holocene thermophilous molluscs (Arctic islandica) recovered from regionally extensive raised marine sediments.</p><p><br>Future Erdmannflya research directions include investigating geomorphic and sedimentary records of Holocene cirque glacier and tidewater margin behaviours, the micropalaeontolgy and biogeochemistry of raised marine sequences as indicators of palaeoceanographic evolution, CO2 and CH4 fluxes and origins within rapidly-deposited Holocene lacustrine sediments, and the potential for raised beach morphologies and sediments to record changes in marine climate and tsunami inundation. Plus many more!</p><p><br>Coupled with detailed marine work offshore in Isfjorden and investigation of adjacent fjords, we propose that Erdmannflya can be developed into a Holocene High Arctic geomorphic supersite, co-ordinated by the University Centre in Svalbard with data open and accessible to the wider scientific community through the developing Svalbox open geological data portal (https://svalbox.no). We invite all interested scientists to join us in this highly relevant and exciting collaboration.</p>