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Eleven phases of Greenland Ice Sheet shelf-edge advance over the past 2.7 million years

Abstract

The reconstruction of former ice sheets is important for testing Earth system models that can assess interactions between polar ice sheets and global climate, but information retrieved from contemporary glaciated margins is sparse. In particular, we need to know when ice sheets began to form marine outlets and the mechanisms by which they advance and retreat over timescales from decades to millions of years. Here, we use a dense grid of high-quality two-dimensional seismic reflection data to examine the stratigraphy and evolution of glacial outlets, or palaeo-ice streams, that drained the northwest Greenland Ice Sheet into Baffin Bay. Seismic horizons are partly age constrained by correlation with cores from drill sites. Progradational units separated by onlap surfaces record 11 major phases of shelf-edge ice advance and subsequent transgression since the first ice-sheet expansion 3.3–2.6 million years ago. The glacial outlet system appears to have developed in four stages, each potentially caused by tectonic and climatic changes. We infer that an abrupt change in ice-flow conditions occurred during the mid-Pleistocene transition, about 1 million years ago, when ice movement across the shelf margin changed from widespread to a more focused flow (ice streams), forming the present-day glacial troughs.

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Fig. 1: Map of the study area with seismic lines and palaeo-shelf-break positions of glacigenic prograding units.
Fig. 2: Seismic transect NE–SW across the Melville Bugt TMF.
Fig. 3: Detailed seismic profiles.
Fig. 4: Seismic profile SE–NW across the Delta-1 drill site located south of the main study area .
Fig. 5: Correlation of the northwestern GrIS prograding system with regional and global climate proxies from 3.4 Ma to present.
Fig. 6: Thickness maps for each of the prograding units.

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Data availability

All seismic data that support the findings of this study are publicly available by request from the GEUS data department (www.GEUS.dk).

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Acknowledgements

TGS Geophysical Company is acknowledged for use of seismic data. A.M.W.N. was supported by the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC grant reference number NE/K500859/1) and Cairn Energy for PhD funding.

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The study was initiated and led by P.C.K. A.M.W.N. provided complementary results and contributed to the discussion. J.R.H. provided data for the depth conversion and contributed to the interpretation and discussion. M.H. contributed to the interpretation and discussion. U.G. provided input to the seismic interpretation. E.S. and K.D. contributed biostratigraphic analyses of industry well data.

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Correspondence to Paul C. Knutz.

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Knutz, P.C., Newton, A.M.W., Hopper, J.R. et al. Eleven phases of Greenland Ice Sheet shelf-edge advance over the past 2.7 million years. Nat. Geosci. 12, 361–368 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0340-8

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