Greenland ice sheet retreat history in the northeast Baffin Bay based on high-resolution bathymetry

• Published in: Quaternary Science Reviews
• Main Authors: Slabon, Patricia, Dorschel, Boris, Jokat, Wilfried, Myklebust, Reidun, Hebbeln, Dierk, Gebhardt, Catalina
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD 2016
• Subjects: Baffin Bay; Greenland; Baffin; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/42281/; http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379116304930; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.49001

New swath-bathymetric data acquired in 2010 and 2015 indicate a variety of glacial landforms in cross-shelf troughs of the Melville Bay (northeast Baffin Bay). These landforms reveal that, at their maximum extent, ice streams in the troughs crossed the shelf all the way to the shelf edge. Moraines, grounding-zone wedges (GZWs) and subglacial till lobes on the continental shelf define a pattern of variable ice stream retreat in the individual troughs. On the outer shelf, in the northern cross-shelf trough, ice-stream retreat was slow compared to more episodic retreat in the central (at least one stabilization on the outer shelf) and southern cross-shelf trough (re-advances at the shelf edge and fast retreat thereafter). Large GZWs on the mid-to inner shelf of the troughs indicate periods of grounding-zone stabilization. According to glacial landforms, the final retreat across the inner shelf (before 8.41 ka BP) was episodic to slow. Furthermore, evidence has been found for localized ice domes with minor ice-streams on inter-trough banks. The glacial landforms in Melville Bay, thus, indicate the varying and discontinuous ice sheet retreat history across the Northwest Greenland continental shelf.