| Summary: | GeoBremen 2017, The System Earth and its Materials - from Seafloor to Summit, Joint Meeting organized by the Deutsche Mineralogische Gesellschaft (DMG) and the Deutsche Geologische Gesellschaft - Geologische Vereinigung (DGGV), 24-29 September 2017, Bremen, Germany Trough-mouth fans (TMF) in high-latitude continental margins of the SW Barents Sea contain aclimatically controlled heterogeneous sediment archive that is driven by glacial advances and retreats toand from the shelf edge. The fundamental control that such TMF exert on continental slope stability isexemplified by large and numerous submarine landslides located mainly at TMF flanks. To understandthe factors driving this instability, frequency-magnitude relationships of landslide events in the Storfjorden,Kveithola and Bjørnøya TMF are investigated within a PhD project issued by the University of Tromsø(UiT) and funded by the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL, Sogndal). Theinvestigated submarine landslides point at deglaciation-associated deposits (mainly meltwater plumites)as a primary gliding horizon within the glacial-interglacial cycle. Contrarily, former till deltas that havebeen pushed over the shelf break and deposited as glacigenic debris flows in glacial times make up largeparts of rather stable, central TMF areas and can therefore be clearly distinguished from landslide events.Both findings jointly reveal a climate control on arctic continental slope stability Peer Reviewed
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