Minimal Holocene retreat of large tidewater glaciers in Koge Bugt, southeast Greenland.

ABSTRACT: Køge Bugt, in southeast Greenland, hosts three of the largest glaciers of the Greenland Ice Sheet; these have been major contributors to ice loss in the last two decades. Despite its importance, the Holocene history of this area has not been investigated. We present a 9100 year sediment core record of glaciological and oceanographic changes from analysis of foraminiferal assemblages, the abundance of ice-rafted debris, and sortable silt grain size data. Results show that ice-rafted debris accumulated constantly throughout the core; this demonstrates that glaciers in Køge Bugt remained in tidewater settings throughout the last 9100 years. This observation constrains maximum Holocene glacier retreat here to less than 6 km from present-day positions. Retreat was minimal despite oceanic and cl

SUBMITTER: Dyke LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5615072 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature