Environmental changes in Baffin Bay during the Holocene based on the physical and magnetic properties of sediment cores

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe physical and magnetic properties of four long sediment cores (HU2008‐029‐034PC, ‐038PC, ‐042PC and ‐070PC) sampled in Northern (Smith Sound and Jones Sound) and Eastern (Disko Bugt) Baffin Bay were analysed to reconstruct the Holocene environmental changes in Baffin Bay. Radiocarbon dating of each core revealed sedimentation rates of up to 136 cm ka−1. Except for specific intervals, magnetic properties and ratios reveal that the magnetic remanence is mostly carried by magnetite and that changes in magnetic grain size and concentration are indicative of environmental variations associated with ice‐rafted debris, sea‐ice, meltwater pulses or terrigenous inputs. These variations indicate that all four cores, which cover a period from 12 360 cal a BP to the present, have sedimentary facies that correspond to the major climatic changes of the Holocene: deglaciation and the climatic optimum. In addition, two cores (HU2008‐029‐038PC and ‐070PC) present the signal of two climatic events with a local influence during the Neoglacial period.