Discharge of meteoric water in the eastern Norwegian Sea since the last glacial period

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Hong, Wei-Li, Lepland, Aivo, Himmler, Tobias, Kim, Ji-Hoon, Chand, Shyam, Sahy, Diana, Solomon, Evan A., Rae, James W. B., Martma, Tõnu, Nam, Seung-Il, Knies, Jochen
• Other Authors: University of St Andrews.School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of St Andrews.St Andrews Isotope Geochemistry
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Ssubmarine groundwater discharge; Arctic Ocean; Methane emission; Authigenic mineral; G Geography (General); GC Oceanography; DAS; G1; GC; Arctic; Svalbard; Norwegian Sea; Norway; Hanssen; Northern Norway; permafrost
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10023/18146; https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL084237

The work is supported by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) through Petromaks2- NORCRUST (project number: 255150) and its Centre of Excellence funding scheme for CAGE (project number: 223259). J.-H. K. is supported by the project "Development on Geochemical Proxies of Isotope and Trace Element for Understanding of Earth and Universe Evolution Processes (GP2017-018)" funded by the Korea Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT). Svalbard fjord cruise in 2016 with RV Helmer Hanssen for Science Research Program to S.-I.N. is fully supported by MSIT (NRF-2015M1A5A1037243, PN19090). Submarine groundwater discharge could impact the transport of critical solutes to the ocean. However, its driver(s), significance over geological time scales, and geographical coverage are poorly understood. We characterize a submarine groundwater seep from the continental slope off northern Norway where substantial amount of meteoric water was detected. We reconstruct the seepage history from textural relationships and U-Th geochronology of authigenic minerals. We demonstrate how glacial-interglacial dynamics promoted submarine groundwater circulation more than 100 km offshore and resulted in high fluxes of critical solutes to the ocean. This cryosphere-hydrosphere coupling is likely common in the circum-Arctic implying that future decay of glaciers and permafrost in a warming Arctic is expected to attenuate such a coupled process and thus decrease the export of critical solutes. Peer reviewed