The distribution of ice‐rafted detritus (IRD) is studied in three cores from the western Svalbard slope (1130–1880 m water depth, 76–78°N) covering the period 74–0 ka. The aim was to provide new insight into the dynamics of the Svalbard–Barents Sea Ice Sheet during Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 4–1 to get a better understanding of ice‐sheet interactions with changes in ocean circulation and climate ...

We reconstruct climate and changes in water-mass properties in relation to variations in palaeoproductivity at the south-western Svalbard margin throughout the last 2000 years. Environmental conditions in subsurface (ca. 250–75 m) and near-surface to surface water (75–0 m) were studied on the basis of the distribution patterns and fluxes of planktic foraminiferal faunas. Stable isotopes in three ...

One of four marine cores of glacial sediments collected from a water depth of about 1200 m at Vestnesa Ridge (west of Svalbard) contained small fragments of coal, charcoal and moss. This material was restricted to a single level, and 14C dating of bivalves both above and below indicates an age of c. 18.0–15.5 kyr BP. Chemical analyses of the coal indicate that the provenance area was from the northern ...

We report, for the first time, the solemyid <i>Acharax svalbardensis</i> sp. nov., from deep-sea methane seep sites on the western Svalbard margin, 79°N. This species is rather small and so far the northernmost representative of its genus. It is identified based on the following combination of diagnostic characters: umbo 27–30% valve length from posterior margin; H/L ratio ∼0.35; broadly rounded to ...

The precise reason for the differences and out-of-phase relationship between the abrupt Dansgaard- Oeschger warmings in the Nordic seas and Greenland ice cores and the gradual warmings in the southcentral Atlantic and Antarctic ice cores is poorly understood. Termed the bipolar seesaw, the differences are apparently linked to perturbations in the ocean circulation pattern. Here we show that ...

Fossil marine diatom assemblages in a sediment core from the central northern Faroe slope in the Norwegian Sea were used to reconstruct palaeoceanographic changes in the surface water mixed layer from the last ~130,000 years (Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6/5 transition to MIS 1 (including the Eemian and Holocene interglacials) and to compare the results with previously published results on planktic ...

Brines can have a profound influence on the relative abundance of calcareous and agglutinated foraminiferal faunas. Here we investigated the distribution of benthic foraminiferal species in four cores from a brine‐enriched environment in Storfjorden, Svalbard. Stratigraphically, the cores comprise the last 15 000 years. The purpose of the study was to reconstruct changes in the palaeoecology and ...

We used ancient DNA (aDNA) extraction methods to sequence museum voucher samples of Oligobrachia webbi, a frenulate siboglinid polychaete described from a northern Norwegian fjord over fifty years ago. Our sequencing results indicate a genetic match with the cryptic seep species, Oligobrachia haakonmosbiensis (99% pairwise identity for 574 bp mtCOI fragments). Due to its similarity with O. webbi, ...

Planktic foraminifera and shelled pteropods are some of the major producers of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) in the ocean. Their calcitic (foraminifera) and aragonitic (pteropods) shells are particularly sensitive to changes in the carbonate chemistry and play an important role for the inorganic and organic carbon pump of the ocean. Here, we have studied the abundance distribution of planktic ...