Multiproxy paleoceanographic study from the western Barents Sea reveals dramatic Younger Dryas onset followed by oscillatory warming trend

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Abstract

The Younger Dryas (YD) is recognized as a cool period that began and ended abruptly during a time of general warming at the end of the last glacial. New multi-proxy data from a sediment gravity core from Storfjordrenna (western Barents Sea, 253 m water depth) reveals that the onset of the YD occurred as a single short-lived dramatic environment deterioration, whereas the subsequent warming was oscillatory. The water masses in the western Barents Sea were likely strongly stratified at the onset of the YD, possibly due to runoff of meltwater combined with perennial sea-ice cover, the latter may last up to several decades without any brake-up. Consequently, anoxic conditions prevailed at the bottom of Storfjordrenna, leading to a sharp reduction of benthic biota and the appearance of vivianite microconcretions which formation is favoured by reducing conditions. While the anoxic conditions in Storfjordrenna were transient, the unfavorable conditions for benthic foraminifera lasted for c. 1300 years. We suggest that the Pre-Boreal Oscillation, just after the onset of the Holocene, may have been a continuation of the oscillatory warming trend during the YD.

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Sponsor

Narodowe Centrum Nauki granty: 2016/21/B/ST10/02308, 2019/33/B/ST10/00297, 2013/10/E/ST10/00166

Keywords

climate change, paleoceanography, Barents Sea, Svalbard, Younger Dryas, Storfjordrenna, vivianite, marine sediments, polar research, marine geology, sedimentology, sea ice, 14C, foraminifera, mineralogy, geochemistry, oceanic circulation, anoxia

Citation

Scientific Reports 10:15667, (2020), doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-72747-4

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Rights Creative Commons

Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
Biblioteka Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
Ministerstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego