European glacial landscapes. Maximum extent of glaciations / Европейские гляциальные ландшафты. Максимальная протяженность оледенений

Much of Europe, from Northern Scandinavia and Iceland to the Southern Iberian Peninsula, has been covered by valley glaciers and extensive ice sheets during long periods of the Pleistocene. Consequently, in both highlands and wide areas of the lowlands (particularly in Sweden, Finland, Northern Russia, and Central Europe) deposits of glacial origin (frontal moraines, different types of tills, lateral moraines, drumlins, and eskers) and other deposits indirectly related to glaciers (fluvioglacial terraces, lacustrine deposits, kames, and outwash plains) can frequently be found. Besides, many of the landforms (large polished surfaces, U-shaped valleys, overexcavated basins, fjords, and glacial lakes) contribute to producing spectacular landforms, which has favoured landscape heterogeneity and biodiversity in mountains and plains. The organisation of the current fluvial network in Central and Northwestern Europe is a consequence of the advance and subsequent setbacks of the huge ice sheet of Northern Europe. And the wide alpine valleys dominated at their head by magnificent cirques, and vertical cliffs are related to the activity of glacial tongues that had a great erosive capacity, transformed the relief, and favoured a massive sediment transfer. Glaciers have long dominated much of Europe and have left us traces of the interactions between glacial dynamics, climatic changes, lithology, and preglacial relief. The influence of glaciers is so great that they even condition the characteristics of cultivated areas, the distribution of the mountain meadows, the high productivity of the Central European plain, and even the distribution of forest species in relation to the presence of certain moraine deposits. <...>