Late Early and early Middle Pleistocene limits of Scandinavian glaciations in Poland and Ukraine

The area of southern Poland and the Ukraine was occupied by ice sheets of the South Polish or Oka s.l. (Elsterian) Glaciation, comprising 3 separate glacial advances, that is, the Nidanian (Tursky), Sanian 1 (Vyzhivsk, Don) and Sanian 2 (Krukienice, Oka s.s.). An ice sheet of the Nidanian Glaciation reached its southernmost point in the interfluve of the upper Odra and the upper Vistula. An ice sheet of the Sanian 1 Glaciation advanced furthest to the south in south-eastern Poland and in south-western Ukraine. The Sanian 2 Glaciation (Oka s.s.) ice sheet was smaller in Poland but it was more widespread in the lower Pryp’iat and the middle Dnieper drainage basins. Distinctive lobate margins of the ice sheets were mostly due to adjustments to the relief of their forefields, and can be explained in terms of specific glacial dynamics in this part of Europe.