Sedimentology and geochemistry of core GIK23258-2 in the Barents Sea

• Main Authors: Sarnthein, Michael, van Kreveld, Shirley A, Erlenkeuser, Helmut, Grootes, Pieter Meiert, Kucera, Michal, Pflaumann, Uwe, Schulz, Michael
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2003
• Subjects: Arctic Ocean; Giant box corer; GIK/IfG; GIK23258-2; GIK23258-3; GKG; Institute for Geosciences; Christian Albrechts University; Kiel; KAL; Kasten corer; M7/2; Meteor (1986); Barents Sea; Climate change; Foraminifera*; Greenland; Sea ice; Spitsbergen
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.727691; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.727691

At the western continental margin of the Barents Sea, 75°N, hemipelagic sediments provide a record of Holocene climate change with a time resolution of 10-70 years. Planktic foraminifera counts reveal a very early Holocene thermal optimum 10.7-7.7 kyr BP, with summer sea surface temperatures (SST) of 8°C and a much enhanced West Spitsbergen Current. There was a short cooling between 8.8 and 8.2 kyr BP. In the middle and late Holocene summer, SST dropped to 2.5°-5.0°C, indicative of reduced Atlantic heat advection, except for two short warmings near 2.2 and 1.6 kyr BP. Distinct quasi-periodic spikes of coarse sediment fraction (with large portions of lithic grains, benthic and planktic foraminifera) record cascades of cold, dense winter water down the continental slope as a result of enhanced seasonal sea ice formation and storminess on the Barents shelf over the entire Holocene. The spikes primarily cluster near recurrence intervals of 400-650 and 1000-1350 years, when traced over the entire Holocene, but follow significant 885-/840- and 505-/605-year periodicities in the early Holocene. These non-stationary periodicities mimic the Greenland-[Formula: See Text]Be variability, which is a tracer of solar forcing. Further significant Holocene periodicities of 230, (145) and 93 years come close to the deVries and Gleissberg solar cycles.