Sensitivity, persistence and resolution of the geomorphological record of valley-floor floods in an alpine glacier-fed catchment, Leirdalen, Jotunheimen, southern Norway

Coarse-grained flood deposits, including 52 discrete berms, bars, terraces, splays and sheets, were investigated along a 6.6 km stretch of the Leira river, in a catchment containing several alpine glaciers. These landforms were mapped, characterized in terms of clast size and reconstructed hydrological parameters, and dated using several techniques with differing temporal range and resolution. High-resolution lichenometric dating indicated that 60–65% of the deposits date from the 20th century whereas 5.7% are 300–600 years old. In contrast, low-resolution Schmidt-hammer exposure-age dating (SHD) indicated that 85% of deposits have an age