NW European ice sheets and oceanic circulation: Interaction during the last 40 ka

Supervision: Hans Petter Sejrup (UoB), Haflidi Haflidason (UoB), Berit Oline Hjelstuen (UoB)

Project funding: UoB, 4-year scholarship

Project period: October 2013 - October 2017

The main objective of this PhD-project is to study the interaction between the large NW-European ice sheets and the oceanic circulation in the Norwegian Sea towards the end of the last glaciation.

The project is sub-divided into two parts:

• Project I will be a compilation of data derived from several sediment cores from the eastern Norwegian Sea. The focus will be on proxies of sea-surface condition, e.g. the IRD flux, sediment structure and -composition as well as stable isotope measurements on foraminifera. The aim is to enhance the knowledge of the impact of oceanic circulation on the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet (FIS), including the Norwegian Channel Ice Stream (NCIS) and vice versa throughout the last 40.000 years.

• Project II will focus on a high-resolution Holocene reconstruction of contourite development along the Norwegian continental margin in regard to the variability in the ocean circulation and terrigenous influx into the southern Norwegian Sea.

Both projects will use a set of new and previously published sediment cores obtained on and off the southern Norwegian continental slope. The positions of these coring sites allow to record the variations in oceanic circulation as well as in changing terrigenous input from the NW-European ice sheets.

All sampling localities are in close proximity of the Norwegian Atlantic Current (NwAC) and the outer limit of the FIS and the British-Irish Ice Sheets (BIIS) during maximum ice extents. This project will extend the existing database with new measurements, additional cores and updated age models.

The PhD-project is connected to the ESF FP7 Integrated Training Network on “Glaciated North Atlantic Margins [GLANAM - www.glanam.org]”, coordinated by the Department of Earth Science, UiB.