The Late Weichselian sea level history of the Kullen Peninsula in northwest Skåne, southern Sweden

The Kullen Peninsula in northwest Skåne, at the time of the Weichselian deglaciation an island surrounded by the Kattegat Sea, is the earliest known deglaciated area in Sweden. Sediment stratigraphic and mineral magnetic properties, combined with radiocarbon dating, were used to determine and date the isolation of present‐day lake basins from the sea. Significant environmental changes, which reflect the isolations, are supported by previously published palaeoecological data and cannot be related to climate changes. Basins situated above the marine limit (ML) have short (in the order of centimetres) minerogenic sequences that are magnetically characterized by low concentrations of detrital magnetite. In contrast, the pre‐isolation sediments in basins below the ML, especially those deposited in sheltered positions in the landscape, have thick sequences (in the order of metres) of authigenic greigite‐bearing sediments. Age determinations of the isolation level are based on the AMS radiocarbon dating of terrestrial plant macrofossil remains and previously published pollen stratigraphical investigations. Supported by the upper level of a sandy beach deposit preserved on the generally steep till covered slopes, the marine limit can be determined to 88–89 m a.s.l., which developed at the regional deglaciation c. 17000 calendar years ago. The results indicate that the deglaciation shoreline level remained fairly constant, relative to the sea level, for c. 1000 years and was followed by a gentle regression. The presented shoreline displacement curve from the Kullen Peninsula extends c. 1000 calendar years further back in time than any previously published records from the Swedish west coast.