Reply to comment of E. S. Rasmussen and K. Dybkjaer on Patterns of Cenozoic sediment flux from western Scandinavia, by B. Gołędowski, S. B. Nielsen and O. R. Clausen, Basin Research (2012), 24(4), 377-400

Abstract

We appreciate the comment from Rasmussen & Dybkjaer(2013), which adds to the ongoing discussion on the evolution of the Scandinavian region during the Cenozoic. They point to some important issues with respect to the dating of the mid-Miocene succession in the eastern North Sea basin, and we agree that the mid-Miocene period presents ambiguities in a simple correlation between climate changes and sedimentation in the eastern North Sea. However, we find it difficult to accept that their interpretation should prove that our general conclusion on the primary control of the climate on the Cenozoic variations of sediment flux from western Scandinavia is not supported by the geological record. It is important to note that the study area in Golezdowski et al. (2012) is very large (the Dutch, Danish and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea and the Norwegian continental shelf up to Lofoten archipelago), and that the time interval covers the entire Cenozoic. Therefore, there is a large difference in scale between the area considered by Rasmussen & Dybkjaer (2013) and our study, which could not account for every detail in every subarea. In this reply, we elaborate our arguments with specific reference to some of the questions put forward by Rasmussen & Dybkjaer (2013), especially to the relations between the Hodde transgression and the mid-Miocene Unconformity (MMU).