Impact of melt water controlled material flux on the sedimentation in the western Baffin Bay and the circum-Greenland marginal seas

Abstract

The Arctic is highly sensitive to present climate change and is known to be affected by higher degrees of warming than any other region. Since the Arctic is strongly linked to the global climate system by atmospheric and oceanic circulations, it is crucial to learn more about present and possible future environmental changes in the region. Ice sheets, ice caps, and glaciers play an important role in the Arctic system. To learn more about their sensitivity to climate change, the reconstruction of past ice sheet deglaciation patterns is a helpful tool. An interesting research area for ice sheet reconstruction is the Baffin Bay, which is located between Greenland and the Canadian Arctic and connects the Arctic Ocean with the Labrador Sea. Provenance studies on marine sediments from western Baffin Bay can provide insight into past changes in sediment supply and transport pathways and thus give valuable information about regional ice sheet dynamics and palaeoceanographic conditions. This study analyzed the radiogenic Sr, Nd, and Pb isotope composition of the detrital sediment fraction of four sediment cores from western and northern Baffin Bay and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Overall, the data of the sediment cores provide new details on the late Pleistocene and Holocene deglaciation history of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and Innuitian Ice Sheet and related changes in sediment transport processes in western and northern Baffin Bay. Further, the identification of changing sediment provenance of detrital material in marine sediment cores from northern Baffin Bay and Barrow Strait helped to determine better the timing of the opening of these Arctic gateways and the inflow of Arctic waters into Baffin Bay.