Drilling unearths “Fire and Ice” at Southeast Greenland Margin

Abstract

Leg 152 of the Ocean Drilling Program, part of an ongoing campaign of continental margin drilling, investigated the southeast Greenland volcanic rifted margin (Figure 1) in October and November 1993. Drilling at six sites across the continental shelf and into the adjacent Irminger Basin provided a wealth of information about the tectonic and volcanic development of this margin, including the first penetration through the volcanic cover into underlying continental crust.Sediments recovered during the first deep drilling at the southeast Greenland margin give a detailed chronology of oceanographic and climatological events in the North Atlantic, including the surprising discovery that glaciation began in southeast Greenland as long ago as 7 Ma, far earlier than previously thought. This glaciation was preceded by an influx of cold, North Atlantic Deep Water into the Irminger Basin.