Holocene ice sheet dynamics and detrital provenance shifts along the West Greenland Margin recorded by radiogenic isotopes (Sr, Nd, Pb)

• Main Author: Madaj, Lina
• Other Authors: Kasemann, Simone Antonia, Chiessi, Cristiano
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Universität Bremen 2021
• Subjects: Greenland Ice Sheet; Ice-Sheet Dynamics; Holocene; Provenance; Radiogenic Isotopes; 550; 550 Earth sciences and geology; ddc:550; Arctic; Baffin Bay; Greenland; Baffin; glacier; Ice Sheet; Labrador Sea; North Atlantic; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://media.suub.uni-bremen.de/handle/elib/5453; https://doi.org/10.26092/elib/1186; https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:gbv:46-elib54533

Due to the effect of Arctic Amplification the Arctic is currently warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Seasonal sea-ice extent has been alarmingly declining in the past decade. Glaciers and ice caps along the Greenland coast and in the Canadian Arctic have been losing mass on an accelerated rate during the past century. As the global climate system is a complex system connecting different regions via atmospheric transport, changes in Arctic climate patterns are affecting the climate and weather conditions in the lower latitudes. The Greenland Ice Sheet as well as glaciers and ice caps in the Canadian Arctic are the largest freshwater storages on the northern hemisphere and expected to be among the highest contributors to global sea level rise. Freshwater input through meltwater discharge is not only affecting sea level rise but further influencing deep water formation in the Labrador Sea and the subpolar North Atlantic and hence global ocean circulation and climate patterns. To be able to sufficiently predict future developments of the Greenland Ice Sheet with respect to mass loss and resulting impacts on the global climate, data from past climate and Greenland Ice Sheet extents are crucially important. The Holocene spanning the last period of the deglaciation after the Last Glacial Maximum culminating in the Holocene Thermal Maximum when atmospheric temperatures were warmer and glacier and ice-sheet extent smaller than today represents the closest analogue to current atmospheric warming and Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss. The wide west Greenland shelf of Baffin Bay and Labrador Sea hosts thick marine sediments archiving around ten thousand years of this past climate and ice-sheet history. Siliciclastic detrital material discharged into Baffin Bay and the Labrador Sea via meltwater and erosion can be separated from those sedimentary archives and traced back to its source region. Radiogenic isotopes (Sr, Nd, Pb) label the source regions of those sediments by fingerprinting the isotopic ...