Glacier fluctuations at Kackar Dag in the Pontic Mountains, Turkey, and their palaeoclimatic significance

This thesis aims to make the first critical and quantitative reconstruction of the glacial chronology at Kaçkar Dağ in the Pontic mountains, Turkey and from this infer palaeoclimatic fluctuations in the eastern Black Sea. Geomorphological mapping has identified three sets of nested moraines in front of the north facing glaciers at Kaçkar Dağ. Lichenometry, Schmidt hammer and Micro-roughness were used to discriminate the relative age of moraines which imply that the two sets closest to the glacier are probably early Twentieth century and Little Ice Age, while the third is younger than the Last Glacial Maximum and probably late Pleistocene in age. [Continues.]