skip to primary navigation skip to content
 

Geophysical and Geological Investigations of Sedimentation and Ice-Ocean Variability on Arctic Continental Margins

Geophysical and Geological Investigations of Sedimentation and Ice-Ocean Variability on Arctic Continental Margins

This project investigates the development of the continental margins of the Polar North Atlantic during the Late Quaternary. This development is related strongly to the growth and decay of ice sheets on Greenland and Eurasia. The glacial and palaeoceanographic conditions in the Norwegian-Greenland Sea are, in turn, linked to Quaternary climate change. Variations in ice-ocean-climate have produced a distinctive geological record, which includes huge submarine fans, mega-slides, channel systems, and deep-ocean sediments, which contain a chronology for the episodic development of the margin, and for past oceanographic and ice-sheet dynamics. The RRS James Clark Ross was used on Cruise JR51 in 2000 to undertake geophysical and geological investigations using EM120 multibeam swath bathymetry, high-resolution TOBI side-scan sonar, TOPAS sub-bottom profiling and coring:

Ship track of cruise JR51, Polar North Atlantic

Examples of the large-scale sedimentary architecture from both the Norwegian and East Greenland margins are illustrated below:

Polar North Atlantic continental margins: examples of large-scale sediment architecture & morphology: (A) EM120 12 kHz sun-illuminated swath bathymetry image of Traenadjupet Slide, Norwegian Sea; (B) TOBI 30 kHz side-scan sonar image of Traenadjupet Slide; (C) GLORIA 6kHz side-scan sonar mosaic of debris flow lobes on the Bear Island Fan, Norwegian margin; (D) EM120 12 kHz sun-illuminated swath bathymetry image of submarine channel system, Greenland Basin. (Source: modified from Dowdeswell et al., 2002; Geological Society, London, Special Publication, "Glacier-influenced sedimentation on high-latitude continental margins")

Papers relating to this project

Dowdeswell, J.A., Elverhøi, A., Andrews, J.T. and Hebbeln, D. (1999). Asynchronous deposition of ice-rafted layers in the Nordic seas and North Atlantic Ocean. Nature, 400, 348-351.

Ó Cofaigh, C. and Dowdeswell J.A. (2001). Laminated sediments in glacimarine environments: diagnostic criteria for their interpretation. Quaternary Science Reviews, 20, 1411-1436.

Ó Cofaigh, C., Dowdeswell J.A. and Grobe, H. (2001). Holocene glacimarine sedimentation, inner Scoresby Sund, East Greenland: the influence of fast-flowing ice-sheet outlet glaciers. Marine Geology, 175, 103-129.

Dowdeswell, J.A., Ó Cofaigh, C., Taylor, J., Kenyon, N., Mienert, J. and Wilken, M. (in press). On the architecture of high-latitude continental margins: the influence of ice-sheet and sea-ice processes in the Polar North Atlantic. In: Dowdeswell, J.A. and Ó Cofaigh, C. (eds.), Glacier-influenced sedimentation on high-latitude continental margins. Geological Society of London, Special publication, 203.

Ó Cofaigh, C., Taylor, J., Dowdeswell, J.A., Rosell-Melé, A., Kenyon, N.H., Evans, J. and Mienert, J. (in press). Sediment reworking on high-latitude continental margins and its implications for palaeoceanography: insights from the Norwegian-Greenland Sea. In: Dowdeswell, J.A. and Ó Cofaigh, C. (eds.), Glacier-influenced sedimentation on high-latitude continental margins. Geological Society of London, Special publication, 203.

Ó Cofaigh, C., Taylor, J., Dowdeswell, J.A. & Pudsey, C.J. (in press). Palaeo-ice streams, trough mouth fans and high-latitude continental slope sedimentation. Boreas.

Taylor, J., Dowdeswell, J.A., Kenyon, N.H. and Ó Cofaigh, C. (in press). Late Quaternary architecture of trough mouth fans: debris flows and suspended sediments on the Norwegian Sea margin. In: Dowdeswell, J.A. and Ó Cofaigh, C. (eds.), Glacier-influenced sedimentation on high-latitude continental margins. Geological Society of London, Special publication, 203.