A Robust, Multisite Holocene History of Drift Ice off Northern Iceland: Implications for North Atlantic Climate

An important indicator of Holocene climate change is provided by evidence for variations in the extent of drift ice. A proxy for drift ice in Iceland waters is provided by the presence of quartz. Quantitative xray diffraction analysis of the < 2 mm sediment fraction was undertaken on 16 cores fro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Holocene
Main Authors: Andrews, John T., Darby, Dennis A., Eberle, Dennis, Jennings, Anne E., Moros, Matthias, Ogilvie, Astrid
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: ODU Digital Commons 2009
Subjects:
Ice rafted debris
Iceland
Quartz
Drift ice
Holocene
Arctic basin
Climate
Geology
Oceanography
Arctic
Arctic Ocean
Arctic Basin
Climate change
North Atlantic
Online Access:https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/oeas_fac_pubs/285
https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683608098953
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/context/oeas_fac_pubs/article/1296/viewcontent/Andrews_2009_A_robust__multisite_Holocene_hist.pdf
Description
Summary:An important indicator of Holocene climate change is provided by evidence for variations in the extent of drift ice. A proxy for drift ice in Iceland waters is provided by the presence of quartz. Quantitative xray diffraction analysis of the < 2 mm sediment fraction was undertaken on 16 cores from around Iceland. The quartz weight (wt.)% estimates from each core were integrated into 250-yr intervals between −0.05 and 11.7 cal. ka BP. Median quartz wt.% varied between 0.2 and 3.4 and maximum values ranged between 2.8 and 11.8 wt.%. High values were attained in the early Holocene and minimum values were reached 6–7 cal. ka BP. Quartz wt.% then rose steadily during the late Holocene. Our data exhibit no correlation with counts on haematite-stained quartz (HSQ) grains from VM129-191 west of Ireland casting doubt on the ice-transport origin. A pilot study on the provenance of Fe oxide grains in two cores that cover the last 1.3 and 6.1 cal. ka BP indicated a large fraction of the grains between 1 and 6 cal. ka BP were from either Icelandic or presently unsampled sources. However, there was a dramatic increase in Canadian and Russian sources from the Arctic Ocean ~1 cal. ka BP. These data may indicate the beginning of an Arctic Oscillation-like climate mode.

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