Is the central Arctic Ocean a sediment starved basin?

Abstract

Numerous short sediment cores have been retrieved from the central Arctic Ocean, many of which have been assigned sedimentation rates on the order of mm/ka implying that the Arctic Basin was starved of sediments during Plio–Pleistocene times. A review of both shorter-term sedimentation rates, through analysis of available sediment core data, and longer-term sedimentation rates, through estimates of total sediment thickness and bedrock age, suggests that cm/ka-scale rates are pervasive in the central Arctic Ocean. This is not surprising considering the physiographic setting of the Arctic Ocean, being a small land-locked basin since its initial opening during Early Cretaceous times. We thus conclude that the central Arctic Ocean has not been a sediment starved basin, either during Plio–Pleistocene times or during pre-Pliocene times. Rigorous chronstratigraphic analysis permits correlation of sediment cores over a distance of ∼2600 km, from the northwestern Amerasia Basin to the northwestern Eurasia Basin via the Lomonosov Ridge, using paleomagnetic, biostratigraphic, and cyclostratigraphic data.