Glacial Isostacy

vertical movements of the earth’s crust in regions of current and Pleistocene glaciation, caused by the additional load created by ice sheets (settling) and disappearance of the load as they melt (uplift). Glacial isostatic uplifts are especially intensive in regions recently freed from continental glaciers, such as in Canada and Scandinavia, where the total postglacial amplitude exceeds 300 m and the current rate in certain areas (such as the Swedish coast of the Gulf of Bothnia) approaches 1 m per century. Glacial isostatic settling is most strongly marked beneath the interior portions of the present-day glacial shields of Greenland and Antarctica, where the bed of the glacier over sizable areas sags below sea level.