New sedimentological evidence supporting a catastrophic meltwater discharge event along the Beaufort margin, Arctic Ocean

Abstract:

In 2013, a cruise on the USCGC Healy mapped the Beaufort margin from Barrow, AK into the Amundsen Gulf using a towed CHIRP subbottom profiler and a hull-mounted Knudsen CHIRP subbottom profiler to study the deglaciation of the margin. Sediment cores were also acquired. New grain size analyses for three sediment cores will be presented. These records help constrain the flooding events captured in the existing grain size data from JPC 15, just east of the Mackenzie trough. This core shows evidence of multiple ice rafted debris events that were likely sourced from the retreat of the Amundsen ice stream. These layers have peaks in grain size around ~20 microns compared to the ~5 micron average for the rest of the core. The grain size peaks correlate to the high amplitude reflectors observed in the seismic CHIRP data. Similar reflectors are observed in the seismic data from two of the new core locations, one in the Mackenzie trough and one east of the trough. The seismic data from these stations also record a thick sediment package that is ~7 meters thick at its depocenter. This layer is interpreted to record a massive meltwater discharge event that entered the Arctic via the Mackenzie River. Oxygen isotope data from JPC 15 support an event at this location based on the covarying benthic and planktonic records. In our conceptual model, the pulses of freshwater from the Amundsen Gulf likely freshened the margin sufficiently that the major discharge event was then able to push the system over the edge. This catastrophic glacial lake draining out the Mackenzie River into the Beaufort Sea and export out of the Arctic into the North Atlantic caused diminished meridional overturning circulation - slowing of the conveyor belt thermohaline circulation – which, in turn, potentially caused the Younger Dryas cold period.