A glacier-influenced turbidite system and associated landform assemblage in the Greenland Basin and adjacent continental slope

Evidence of the former extent and dynamics of the Greenland Ice Sheet is preserved on the continental margin of NE Greenland (Fig. 1). The continental shelf is incised by a number of deep (up to 500 m) cross-shelf troughs (Batchelor & Dowdeswell 2014; Arndt et al. 2015) (Fig. 1a), which are interpreted to have been occupied intermittently and eroded by marine-terminating ice streams during successive full-glacial periods (e.g. Dowdeswell et al. 2014). The outer continental shelf of NE Greenland was previously thought to have remained free of grounded ice during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) at around 20 ka, with the ice sheet restricted mainly to fjord and inner-shelf locations (Funder 1989; Funder & Hansen 1996; Bennike & Weidick 2001). However, recent geophysical and geological evidence, including streamlined submarine landforms and moraine ridges within several cross-shelf troughs, suggests that the Greenland Ice Sheet expanded across the outer-shelf beyond the NE Greenland coast, possibly to the shelf break, during the LGM (Evans et al. 2002, 2009; Winkelmann et al. 2010).

Details