The Northwestern Greenland Ice Sheet During The Early Pleistocene Was Similar To Today

Christ, Andrew J.; Bierman, Paul R.; Knutz, Paul C.; Corbett, Lee B.; Fosdick, Julie C.; Thomas, Elizabeth K.; Cowling, Owen C.; Hidy, Alan J.; Caffee, Marc W.

doi:10.1029/2019GL085176

The Northwestern Greenland Ice Sheet During The Early Pleistocene Was Similar To Today

Journal Article · Wed Dec 18 00:00:00 EST 2019 · Geophysical Research Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL085176· OSTI ID:1608526

Christ, Andrew J. ^[1]; Bierman, Paul R. ^[2]; Knutz, Paul C. ^[3]; Corbett, Lee B. ^[2]; Fosdick, Julie C. ^[4]; Thomas, Elizabeth K. ^[5]; Cowling, Owen C. ^[5]; Hidy, Alan J. ^[6]; Caffee, Marc W. ^[7]

Univ. of Vermont, Burlington, VT (United States); Boston Univ., MA (United States)
Univ. of Vermont, Burlington, VT (United States)
Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Copenhagen (Denmark)
Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs, CT (United States)
State Univ. of New York, Buffalo, NY (United States)
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States)

The multi-million year history of the Greenland Ice Sheet remains poorly known. Ice-proximal glacial marine diamict provides a direct but discontinuous record of ice sheet behavior; it is underutilized as a climate archive. In this paper, we present a novel multiproxy analysis of an Early Pleistocene marine diamict from northwestern Greenland. Low cosmogenic nuclide concentrations indicate minimal near-surface exposure, similar to modern terrestrial sediment. Detrital apatite (U-Th-Sm)/He (AHe) ages all predate glaciation by >150 million years, suggesting the northwestern Greenland Ice Sheet had, by 1.9 Ma, not yet incised fjords of sufficient depth to excavate grains with young AHe ages. The diamict contains terrestrial plant leaf wax, likely from land surfaces surrounding the ice sheet. These data indicate that a persistent, dynamic ice sheet existed in northwestern Greenland by 1.9 Ma and that diamict is a useful archive of ice sheet history and process.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-07NA27344

OSTI ID:: 1608526

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1581197

Report Number(s):: LLNL-JRNL--774748; 967584

Journal Information:: Geophysical Research Letters, Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 47; ISSN 0094-8276

Publisher:: American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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