Northern Central Europe: glacial landforms during deglaciation (18.9–14.9 ka)

After the Last Glacial Maximum, a general retreat of the European Ice Sheet Complex (EISC) was interrupted by several ice margin standstills and readvances. Three main ice-marginal standstills were distinguished, each preceded by the ice sheet advance, corresponding in turn to Chodzież (17.7 ka BP), Pomeranian (16.7–16.8 ka BP) and Gardno (15.5–16.0 ka) Phases. A lobate configuration of the EISC margin is characteristic for the Pomeranian Phase with the major Odra and Vistula lobes. Afterwards, Central Europe became ice-free before 14.9 ka and the ice margin retreated into the southern Baltic basin where numerous ice-dam lakes, submarine ice marginal formations and glaciofluvial deltas developed during ice margin standstills of the Słupsk Bank Phase (15.2 ka) and the Southern Middle Bank Phase. A postglacial landscape of Central Europe is hummocky in general, including mostly cohesive till morainic uplands with kames and dead-ice moraines, accompanied by extensive outwash plains in a foreland of the end moraines. The eastern Baltic region is predominated by glacial depression lowlands and insular uplands with abundant and diversified glacial landforms. Meltwaters produced during the Pomeranian Phase were collected mostly in the Toruń–Eberswalde ice marginal spillway and drained via the Elbe valley to the North Sea. Intensive deflation and aeolian accumulation resulted in deposition of aeolian sand sheets and dunes in the extraglacial area and of loess more to the south.