Quaternary Geochronology 18 (1999) 179 — 190 Luminescence dating of the last Weichselian Glacier advance in East Greenland L. Hansen *, S. Funder, A.S. Murray, V. Mejdahl Geological Museum, University of Copenhagen, DK-1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark The Nordic Laboratory for Luminescence Dating, Ris~ National Laboratory, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark Abstract We have studied fluvial and deltaic sediments that accumulated at the margin of a fjord during the Flakkerhuk stade when the last major glaciers advanced and retreated in the Scoresby Sund region, East Greenland. The sediments have been dated using the optically stimulated luminescence of quartz and, as a control on the technique, those sediments deposited after deglaciation were also dated using C. We conclude that the last glacier build-up began much earlier than previously suggested; our data indicate the existence of a more or less stable ice cover for a period of c. 50 ka. This is consistent with the record of ice rafted detritus on the continental slope off the Scoresby Sund fjord complex, and suggests that the glacier had a polar regime with little surface melting or basal slide.  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The dating and understanding of the processes that culminated in the last glacial maximum (LGM) at c. 21—18 ka is important to our understanding of the inter- action between ice sheets and climate. On land these events are represented by moraines and other ice mar- ginal sediment accumulations. However, dating these accumulations has generally been difficult because sedi- ments in these turbulent environments have gone through several cycles of reworking. There is thus little in situ material suitable for C dating, and luminescence tech- niques may be compromised by the periglacial environ- ment with short transport routes and turbid waters, which allow only a limited chance for exposure to daylight. This paper applies a combined approach to the dating of sedimentary successions on Jameson Land, East Greenland (Fig. 1). In East Greenland, the LGM marks the culmination of the last major resurgence, the Flakkerhuk stade. When the glacier advanced through the fjords it dammed shallow lake basins. We have * Corresponding author. Email: louiseh@savik.geomus.ku.dk  The Nordic Laboratory for Luminescence Dating is a section of the Department of Earth Sciences, Aarhus University, C.F. M+llers Alle´ DK-8000 A s rhus C, Denmark. dated the sediments that accumulated during damming using a combination of luminescence techniques on quartz (Q) and feldspar (F) grains from the same samples. As a control on the luminescence dates the results are compared with C dates obtained from sediments de- posited in the Early Holocene. Because feldspar is less sensitive to light than quartz the F/Q age ratio may reflect the effect of differential bleaching and thus give some indication of the depositional environment. The same approach was also applied to pre-Holocene sedi- ments deposited before the LGM and to sediments assigned to the Eemian from biostratigraphy. Unfortu- nately, material suitable for C dating was scarce in pre- Holocene sediments. Our new results are compared both with revised dates from adjacent areas on Jameson Land (Lysa  and Land- vik, 1994; Tveranger et al., 1994), as well as the marine record from the shelf and slope of East Greenland (Nam et al., 1995; Stein et al., 1996). An overview of previous feldspar dates from the area was published by Mejdahl and Funder (1994). 2. The Flakkerhuk stade and its setting The Flakkerhuk stade marks the last major growth, culmination and initial decay of fjord glaciers in Scoresby 0277-3791/99/$ — see front matter  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 2 7 7 - 3 7 9 1 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 0 5 1 - 1