The question of drainage of the Warsaw ice-dammed lake, Central Poland

Forysiak, Jacek; Majecka, Aleksandra; Marks, Leszek; Bujak, Łukasz; Twardy, Juliusz

doi:0016-7282 (print)

Object

Abstract:

The enigma of the outflow from the Warsaw ice-dammed lake in Central Poland through the Warsaw-Berlin ice-marginal spillway during the Vistulian (Weichselian) Glaciation is discussed. Many years’ research and published concepts expressed in numerous publications since the beginning of the 20th century are presented. A runoff in the Warsaw-Berlin ice-marginal spillway was treated as impossible during the LGM, because of a high watershed zone close to Łęczyca. The floor of this ice-marginal spillway is filled by silt and sands series correlated with Upper Weichselian and sand with peat complex Late Weichselian and Holocene Age. However, a relation of the glaciolacustrine sediments and the spillway floor indicates that the latter is masked by a deposits postdate the outflow episode. Proglacial and extraglacial waters were collected in the Warsaw ice-dammed lake and was drained westwards through the Warsaw-Berlin ice-marginal spillway.