Publication Date:
2019-04-05
Description:
Late Pleistocene climatic and paleoceanographic changes in the Norwegian-Greenland Sea are reflected in eleven long sediment cores by variations in calcium carbonate content and calcareous biogenic components versus coarse terrigenous ice-rafted detritus (IRD). High contents of IRD in glacial sequences are evidence for an enhanced melting of sea ice and icebergs. In contrast, high calcium carbonate contents indicate the inflow of warm Atlantic surface waters.
The petrographic IRD composition in cores from the eastern and central Norwegian-Greenland Sea shows that the terrigenous material was predominantly derived from Scandinavia. Thus, it can be concluded that changes in the terrigenous input were caused by oscillations of the Late Pleistocene Scandinavian ice sheet. Changes in the extension of this ice sheet during the last 130 ky correlate well with our IRD data.
Type:
Article
,
PeerReviewed
Format:
text
