Late Quaternary Glaciations on the Chukchi Margin, Arctic Ocean: Insights From Echo Sounding and Sediment Records

Abstract

Glacigenic bedforms such as glacial lineations and moraines on the Chukchi and East Siberian margins of the Arctic Ocean reveal recurrent waxing and waning of voluminous ice masses. Despite their paleoclimatic significance, the timing, geographic distribution, and mechanisms of these glaciations remain inadequately understood. To enhance our understanding of the Quaternary Arctic glacial history, we study high-resolution swath bathymetry and subbottom profiler data with lithostratigraphy and provenance of four sediment cores. These data characterize deposits of the last two glaciations at the Chukchi margin and adjacent basins. In all cores, multiple peaks of plagioclase are prominent in both glacial intervals, probably reflecting predominant glacigenic input from the East Siberian Ice Sheet (ESIS). Peaks of dolomite and quartz trace the Laurentide Ice Sheet sources around the last glacial/deglacial interval and in sediment preceding the older glaciation. By integrating seismostratigraphy with sediment cores, we constrain the formation of mid-slope moraines on the western side of the Chukchi Rise to the older glaciation (estimated age range MIS 4 or 6). Considering the coeval glacial erosion off the East Siberian margin, our results confirm that the ESIS at that time extended to water depths of similar to 650/950 m on the Chukchi Rise/East Siberian margin. In comparison, the last ESIS (MIS 2 or possibly 4) was smaller, with the identified seafloor imprint limited to water depths of similar to 450 m on the Chukchi Borderland, while its extent on the East Siberian margin remains to be determined.