Beschreibung: To better understand Pleistocene climatic changes in the Arctic, integrated palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic signals from a variety of marine and terrestrial geological records as well as geochronologic age control are required, not least for correlation to extra-Arctic records. In this paper we discuss, from an Arctic perspective, methods and correlation tools that are commonly used to date Arctic Pleistocene marine and terrestrial events. We review the state of the art of Arctic geochronology, with focus on factors that affect the possibility and quality of dating, and support this overview by examples of application of modern dating methods to Arctic terrestrial and marine sequences. Event stratigraphy and numerical ages are important tools used in the Arctic to correlate fragmented terrestrial records and to establish regional stratigraphic schemes. Age control is commonly provided by radiocarbon, luminescence or cosmogenic exposure ages. Arctic Ocean deep-sea sediment successions can be correlated over large distances based on geochemical and physical property proxies for sediment composition, patterns in palaeomagnetic records and, increasingly, biostratigraphic data. Many of these proxies reveal cyclical patterns that provide a basis for astronomical tuning. Recent advances in dating technology, calibration and age modelling allow for measuring smaller quantities of material and to more precisely date previously undatable material (i.e. foraminifera for C-14, and single-grain luminescence). However, for much of the Pleistocene there are still limits to the resolution of most dating methods. Consequently improving the accuracy and precision (analytical and geological uncertainty) of dating methods through technological advances and better understanding of processes are important tasks for the future. Another challenge is to better integrate marine and terrestrial records, which could be aided by targeting continental shelf and lake records, exploring proxies that occur in both settings, and by creating joint research networks that promote collaboration between marine and terrestrial geologists and modellers.

Beschreibung: Glaciofluvial sand draining the newly discovered Hiawatha impact crater under the Greenland Ice Sheet in North-West Greenland contains shocked quartz, glasses derived from direct mineral melts, carbon-bearing glasses, particles of charcoal and transformed ('glassy') charcoal, as well as low-reflectance carbonaceous grains with tiny carbon spherules and mineral fragments. Some of these grains are interpreted as ejecta and perhaps plume material containing sublimated and re-deposited carbon. The only plausible carbon source of this carbon is subfossil Arctic vegetation including small conifer and angiosperm trees older than 50 ka and likely around 2.3 Ma in age, supporting a very young age of the crater.

Beschreibung: We report the discovery of a large impact crater beneath Hiawatha Glacier in northwest Greenland. From airborne radar surveys, we identify a 31-kilometer-wide, circular bedrock depression beneath up to a kilometer of ice. This depression has an elevated rim that cross-cuts tributary subglacial channels and a subdued central uplift that appears to be actively eroding. From ground investigations of the deglaciated foreland, we identify overprinted structures within Precambrian bedrock along the ice margin that strike tangent to the subglacial rim. Glaciofluvial sediment from the largest river draining the crater contains shocked quartz and other impact-related grains. Geochemical analysis of this sediment indicates that the impactor was a fractionated iron asteroid, which must have been more than a kilometer wide to produce the identified crater. Radiostratigraphy of the ice in the crater shows that the Holocene ice is continuous and conformable, but all deeper and older ice appears to be debris rich or heavily disturbed. The age of this impact crater is presently unknown, but from our geological and geophysical evidence, we conclude that it is unlikely to predate the Pleistocene inception of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Beschreibung: While there are numerous hypotheses concerning glacialeinterglacial environmental and climatic regime shifts in the Arctic Ocean, a holistic view on the Northern Hemisphere’s late Quaternary ice-sheet extent and their impact on ocean and sea-ice dynamics remains to be established. Here we aim to provide a step in this direction by presenting an overview of Arctic Ocean glacial history, based on the present state-of-the-art knowledge gained from field work and chronological studies, and with a specific focus on ice-sheet extent and environmental conditions during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The maximum Quaternary extension of ice sheets is discussed and compared to LGM. We bring together recent results from the circum-Arctic continental margins and the deep central basin; extent of ice sheets and ice streams bordering the Arctic Ocean as well as evidence for ice shelves extending into the central deep basin. Discrepancies between new results and published LGM ice-sheet reconstructions in the high Arctic are highlighted and outstanding questions are identified. Finally, we address the ability to simulate the Arctic Ocean ice sheet complexes and their dynamics, including ice streams and ice shelves, using presently available ice-sheet models. Our review shows that while we are able to firmly reject some of the earlier hypotheses formulated to describe Arctic Ocean glacial conditions, we still lack information from key areas to compile the holistic Arctic Ocean glacial history.