Parasound profiles and multibeam surveys in the Arctic Ocean

DOI

During the Pleistocene glaciations, Arctic ice sheets on western Eurasia, Greenland and North America terminated at their continental margins. In contrast, the exposed continental shelves in the Beringian region of Siberia are thought to have been covered by a tundra landscape. Evidence of grounded ice on seafloor ridges and plateaux off the coast of the Beringian margin, at depths of up to 1,000 m, have generally been attributed to ice shelves or giant icebergs that spread oceanwards during glacial maxima. Here we identify marine glaciogenic landforms visible in seismic profiles and detailed bathymetric maps along the East Siberian continental margin. We interpret these features, which occur in present water depths of up to 1,200 m, as traces from grounding events of ice sheets and ice shelves. We conclude that the Siberian Shelf edge and parts of the Arctic Ocean were covered by ice sheets of about 1 km in thickness during several Pleistocene glaciations before the most recent glacial period, which must have had a significant influence on albedo and oceanic and atmospheric circulation.

Supplement to: Niessen, Frank; Hong, Jong Kuk; Hegewald, Anne; Matthiessen, Jens; Stein, Ruediger; Kim, Hyoungjun; Kim, Sookwan; Jensen, Laura; Jokat, Wilfried; Nam, Seung-Il; Kang, Sung-Ho (2013): Repeated Pleistocene glaciation of the East Siberian continental margin. Nature Geoscience, 6, 842-846

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.810972
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1904
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.810972
Provenance
Creator Niessen, Frank ORCID logo; Hong, Jong Kuk; Hegewald, Anne; Matthiessen, Jens ORCID logo; Stein, Ruediger ORCID logo; Kim, Hyoungjun; Kim, Sookwan ORCID logo; Jensen, Laura (ORCID: 0000-0002-8318-791X); Jokat, Wilfried ORCID logo; Nam, Seung-Il; Kang, Sung-Ho
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2013
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Language English
Resource Type Supplementary Publication Series of Datasets; Collection
Format application/zip
Size 9 datasets
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (-176.763W, 75.485S, 172.962E, 78.051N)
Temporal Coverage Begin 2008-08-12T09:00:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2012-08-24T17:20:00Z