Episodic Ice-Free Arctic Ocean in Pliocene and Pleistocene Time: Calcareous Nannofossil Evidence

• Published in: Science
• Main Authors: Worsley, Thomas R., Herman, Yvonne
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 1980
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.210.4467.323; https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.210.4467.323

Today's ice cover (2 to 4 meters thick) over the Arctic Ocean provides a shadow that prevents coccolithophorids (photosynthetic, planktonic algae) from living there. Sparse, low-diversity, but indigenous coccolith assemblages in late Pliocene to mid-Pleistocene (but not Holocene) sediments imply deep penetrating warm currents or an ice-free Arctic Ocean, or both, as those layers were being deposited.