Landscape Age of the Arctic

This data set is of landscape age of the Arctic, in 1000 years since the land surface was available for vegetation colonization. It is in vector format. The age of most recent deglaciation, emergence from the sea, or drainage of proglacial lakes was obtained from a compilation of Quaternary glaciations, available in digital format (Ehlers and Gibbard, 2004). Supplemental data provided in some of the regional chapters were especially useful. Although landscape age estimates are bound to change as research continues, the compilation used in this study includes the best available current estimates, and provides a relatively robust data set for analysis at a circumpolar scale. All dates in this study are in calendar years. Dates for Canada were converted from 14C years to calendar years (Dyke, 2004). Data are in 1000 calendar years.