Severnaya Zemlya, Arctic Russia: a Nucleation Area for Kara Sea Ice Sheets During the Middle to Late Quaternary
Abstract
Quaternary glacial stratigraphy and relative sea-level changes reveal at least four expansions of the Kara Sea ice sheet over the Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago, Russian Arctic. Major glaciations followed by deglaciation and marine inundation occurred during MIS 10-9, MIS 8-7, MIS 6-5e and MIS 5d-3. The MIS 6-5e event, associated with marine limit at 140 m a.s.l., implies ice-sheet thickness of more than 2000 m. This is consistent with evidence of ice grounding at 1000 m water depth in the central Arctic Ocean. Till fabrics and glacial tectonics record repeated expansions of local ice caps, suggesting wet-based ice cap advance followed by cold-based regional ice-sheet expansion. Local ice caps over highland sites along the perimeter of the shallow Kara Sea appear to have repeatedly fostered initiation of a large Kara Sea ice sheet, with exception of the Last Glacial Maximum (MIS 2), when Kara Sea ice did not impact Severnaya Zemlya.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2006
- Bibcode:
- 2006AGUFMOS52B..04I
- Keywords:
-
- 0473 Paleoclimatology and paleoceanography (3344;
- 4900);
- 1105 Quaternary geochronology;
- 3344 Paleoclimatology (0473;
- 4900);
- 4926 Glacial