The deep accumulation of 10Be at Utsira, southwestern Norway: Implications for cosmogenic nuclide exposure dating in peripheral ice sheet landscapes

Abstract

Cosmogenic nuclide exposure dating is a widely used method for constraining past ice sheet histories. We scrutinize a recently published data set of cosmogenic 10Be data from erratic boulders in Norway used to constrain the deglaciation of the western Scandinavian Ice Sheet to 20 ka. Our model of the 10Be inventory in glacial surfaces leads us to conclude that the chronology may be afflicted by the deep subsurface accumulation of 10Be during long-lasting ice-free periods that resulted in 10Be ages >10% too old. We suggest that the majority of the dated erratic boulders contain a uniform level of inherited muon-produced 10Be and were derived from bedrock depths >2.5 m and most likely ~4 m. The implication of our finding is that for landscapes that experience long ice-free periods between brief maximum glacial phases, glacial erosion of >5 m is required to remove detectable traces of inherited 10Be.