Evidence for the Hudson River as the dominant source of sand on the US Atlantic Shelf

Abstract

PREVIOUS attempts to determine the origin of sand on the US Atlantic Shelf by standard heavy mineral analysis have concluded that local rivers and coastal erosion were probable sources1. Here a new approach to determine the history of surficial sand dispersal is developed using the elemental composition of detrital Fe–Ti oxide grains (primarily ilmenite) instead of heavy mineral abundances. Sands from the entire middle Atlantic Shelf (latitude 35° N to 41° N) have been interpreted as coming from specific drainage basins1,2. More than half of the sand samples collected as far south as North Carolina can be traced to the Hudson River and other New England sources. The dominance of the Hudson River is cause for rethinking sources of shelf sediment south of New Jersey. These findings suggest that the Hudson River may have rivalled the sediment discharge of much larger rivers like the Mississippi or Amazon Rivers at least during brief glacial melting events.