Holocene ice-rafting and sediment transport from the glaciated margin of East Greenland (67-70°N) to the N Iceland shelves: detecting and modelling changing sediment sources

• Published in: Quaternary Science Reviews
• Main Authors: Andrews, J.T, Bigg, G.R, Wilton, D.J
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2014
• Subjects: Geikie Plateau; Greenland; Denmark Strait; East Greenland; Iceland
• Online Access: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/78108/; https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/78108/1/WRRO_78108.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.08.019

We examine variations in the ice-rafted sources for sediments in the Iceland/East Greenland offshore marine archives by utilizing a sediment unmixing model and link the results to a coupled iceberg-ocean model. Surface samples from around Iceland and along the E/NE Greenland shelf are used to define potential sediment sources, and these are examined within the context of the down-core variations in mineralogy in the <2 mm sediment fraction from a transect of cores across Denmark Strait. A sediment unmixing model is used to estimate the fraction of sediment <2 mm off NW and N Iceland exported across Denmark Strait; this averaged between 10 and 20%. Both the sediment unmixing model and the coupled iceberg-ocean model are consistent in finding that the fraction of "far-travelled" sediments in the Denmark Strait environs is overwhelmingly of local, mid-East Greenland, provenance, and therefore with a significant cross-channel component to their travel. The Holocene record of ice-rafted sediments denotes a three-part division of the Holocene in terms of iceberg sediment transport with a notable increase in the process starting ca 4000 cal yr BP. This latter increase may represent the re-advance during the Neoglacial period of land-terminating glaciers on the Geikie Plateau to become marine-terminating. The contrast in spectral signals between these cores and the 1500-yr cycle at VM28-14, just south of the Denmark Strait, combined with the coupled iceberg-model results, leads us to speculate that the signal at VM28-14 reflects pulses in overflow waters, rather than an ice-rafted signal. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.