Motivated to help improve the robustness of predictions of sea level rise, the BRITICE‐CHRONO project advanced knowledge of the former British–Irish Ice Sheet, from 31 to 15 ka, so that it can be used as a data‐rich environment to improve ice sheet modelling. The project comprised over 40 palaeoglaciologists, covering expertise in terrestrial and marine geology and geomorphology, geochronometric dating and the modelling of ice...

New optically stimulated luminescence dating and Bayesian models integrating all legacy and BRITICE‐CHRONO geochronology facilitated exploration of the controls on the deglaciation of two former sectors of the British–Irish Ice Sheet, the Donegal Bay (DBIS) and Malin Sea ice‐streams (MSIS). Shelf‐edge glaciation occurred ~27 ka, before the global Last Glacial Maximum, and shelf‐wide retreat began 26–26.5 ka at a rate of ~18.7–...

Predicting the future response of ice sheets to climate warming and rising global sea level is important but difficult. This is especially so when fast‐flowing glaciers or ice streams , buffered by ice shelves, are grounded on beds below sea level. What happens when these ice shelves are removed? And how do the ice stream and the surrounding ice sheet respond to the abruptly altered boundary conditions? To address these questi...

Understanding the pace and drivers of marine‐based ice‐sheet retreat relies upon the integration of numerical ice‐sheet models with observations from contemporary polar ice sheets and well‐constrained palaeo‐glaciological reconstructions. This paper provides a reconstruction of the retreat of the last British–Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS) from the Atlantic shelf west of Ireland during and following the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). It...

The findings of BRITICE‐CHRONO Transect 2 through the North Sea Basin and eastern England are reported. We define ice‐sheet marginal oscillation between ~31 and 16 ka, with seven distinctive former ice‐sheet limits (L1–7) constrained by Bayesian statistical analysis. The southernmost limit of the North Sea Lobe is recorded by the Bolders Bank Formation (L1; 25.8–24.6 ka). L2 represents ice‐sheet oscillation and early retreat t...

Here we reconstruct the last advance to maximum limits and retreat of the Irish Sea Glacier (ISG), the only land‐terminating ice lobe of the western British Irish Ice Sheet. A series of reverse bedrock slopes rendered proglacial lakes endemic, forming time‐transgressive moraine‐ and bedrock‐dammed basins that evolved with ice marginal retreat. Combining, for the first time on glacial sediments, optically stimulated luminescenc...

The offshore sector around Shetland remains one of the least well‐studied parts of the former British–Irish Ice Sheet with several long‐standing scientific issues unresolved. These key issues include (i) the dominance of a locally sourced ‘Shetland ice cap’ vs an invasive Fennoscandian Ice Sheet; (ii) the flow configuration and style of glaciation at the Last Glacial Maximum (i.e. terrestrial vs marine glaciation); (iii) the n...

During the Last Glacial Maximum, Donegal in north‐west Ireland functioned as an independent centre of ice dispersal that separated and fed into the Donegal Bay Ice Lobe (sourced in the Irish Midlands) to the south and the Hebrides/Malin Sea Ice Stream to the north. We report geochronological data that demonstrate marked contrasts in the timing and rate of deglaciation in northern and southern Donegal. In northern Donegal, whic...

The stratigraphic sequence at North Cave, on the eastern margins of the Lake Humber basin, records the deposition of a fluvioperiglacial fan (LFs 1–4), with early sedimentation (LF1) dating to Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 (optically stimulated luminescence date range 41.8–38.6 ka and 14 C dates 41.6–49 ka BP). Three phases of permafrost and ice wedge development during MIS 3 are evident and indicate possible fan abandonment an...

The Svalbard–Barents ice sheet was predominantly a marine‐based ice sheet and reconstructing the timing and rate of its decay during the last deglaciation informs predictions of future decay of marine‐based ice sheets (e.g. West Antarctica). Records of ice‐sheet change are routinely built with cosmogenic surface exposure ages, but in some regions, this method is complicated by the presence of isotopic inheritance yielding arti...

We report the first chronology, using four new optically stimulated luminescence dates, on the sedimentary record of Glacial Lake Pickering, dammed by the North Sea Lobe of the British–Irish Ice Sheet during the Dimlington Stadial (24–11 ka cal BP). Dates range from 17.6 ± 1.0 to 15.8 ± 0.9 ka for the sedimentation of the Sherburn Sands at East Heslerton, which were formed by multiple coalescing alluvial fans prograding into t...

The identification of tephra within varved deposits of a former ice‐dammed lake that existed in Scotland during the Younger Dryas provides an opportunity to calibrate 10 Be production rates using previously published 10 Be concentrations from the lake shoreline and independently derived ages for the tephras derived from the Greenland Ice Core records. The best‐estimate ages of the tephras yield indistinguishable 10 Be producti...

We present 10 in situ cosmogenic exposure ages from two moraines on the Isle of Skye. The Strollamus medial moraine was deposited during deglaciation of the Devensian ice sheet and yields a mean exposure age from five samples of 14.3 ± 0.9 ka. The moraine age indicates that a significant ice mass existed on Skye at the time of a regional readvance recorded in Wester Ross, northwest Scotland. Taken at face value the ages sugges...

In this study we have obtained 17 cosmogenic exposure ages from three well‐developed moraine systems – Halland Coastal Moraines (HCM), Göteborg Moraine (GM) and Levene Moraine (LM) – which were formed during the last deglaciation in southwest Sweden by the Scandinavian Ice Sheet (SIS). The inferred ages of the inner HCM, GM and LM are 16.7 ± 1.6, 16.1 ± 1.4 and 13.6 ± 1.4 ka, respectively, which is slightly older than previous...

Cosmogenic 10 Be surface exposure ages for bedrock sites around Torridon and the Applecross Peninsula in Wester Ross, northwest Scotland, provide new insights into the Lateglacial transition. Accounting for postglacial weathering, six statistically comparable exposure ages give a late Younger Dryas (G‐1) exposure age of 11.8 ± 1.1 ka. Two further outliers are tentative pre‐Younger Dryas exposure ages of 13.4 ± 0.5 ka in Torrid...