scholarly journals Accumulation, Ablation, and Oxygen Isotope Variations on the Queen Elizabeth Islands Ice Caps, Canada

1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (86) ◽  
pp. 25-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. M. Koerner

AbstractMeasurements made on traverses over ice caps in the Queen Elizabeth Islands show that there is a region of very high accumulation (>40 g cm–2year–1) on the slopes facing Baffin Bay and one of low accumulation (<15 g cm–2year–1) in the interior parts of northern Ellesmere Island. Ablation rates in summer show much less regional variation over the same ice caps except for lower rates along the north-west edge of the islands and possibly on the Baffin Bay slopes as well. However, there is a stronger relationship between ablation and elevation which is exponential below the firn line. From the fractional18O content of the snow it is shown that Baffin Bay contributes significant amounts of moisture (>20% of the total) to the Baffin Bay slopes. In addition the Arctic Ocean is seen as another, but much less significant, moisture source. The δ18O data show two effects on the condensation processes—an orographic one (i.e. adiabatic cooling) and a distance-from-source effect (isobaric cooling) where the source is somewhere to the south-east of the islands.

1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (86) ◽  
pp. 25-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. M. Koerner

AbstractMeasurements made on traverses over ice caps in the Queen Elizabeth Islands show that there is a region of very high accumulation (>40 g cm–2 year–1) on the slopes facing Baffin Bay and one of low accumulation (<15 g cm–2 year–1) in the interior parts of northern Ellesmere Island. Ablation rates in summer show much less regional variation over the same ice caps except for lower rates along the north-west edge of the islands and possibly on the Baffin Bay slopes as well. However, there is a stronger relationship between ablation and elevation which is exponential below the firn line. From the fractional 18O content of the snow it is shown that Baffin Bay contributes significant amounts of moisture (>20% of the total) to the Baffin Bay slopes. In addition the Arctic Ocean is seen as another, but much less significant, moisture source. The δ18O data show two effects on the condensation processes—an orographic one (i.e. adiabatic cooling) and a distance-from-source effect (isobaric cooling) where the source is somewhere to the south-east of the islands.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lina Madaj ◽  
Friedrich Lucassen ◽  
Claude Hillaire-Marcel ◽  
Simone A. Kasemann

&lt;p&gt;The re-opening of the Arctic Ocean-Baffin Bay gateway through Nares Strait, following the Last Glacial Maximum, has been partly documented, discussed and revised in the past decades. The Nares Strait opening has led to the inception of the modern fast circulation pattern carrying low-salinity Arctic water towards Baffin Bay and further towards the Labrador Sea. This low-salinity water impacts thermohaline conditions in the North Atlantic, thus the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Available land-based and marine records set the complete opening between 9 and 7.5&amp;#160;ka&amp;#160;BP [1-2], although the precise timing and intensification of the southward flowing currents is still open to debate. A recent study of a marine deglacial sedimentary record from Kane Basin, central Nares Strait, adds information about subsequent paleoceanographic conditions in this widened sector of the strait and proposed the complete opening at ~8.3&amp;#160;ka&amp;#160;BP [3].&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We present complementary radiogenic strontium, neodymium and lead isotope data of the siliciclastic detrital sediment fraction of this very record [3] further documenting the timing and pattern of Nares Strait opening from a sediment provenance approach. The data permit to distinguish detrital material from northern Greenland and Ellesmere Island, transported to the core location from both sides of Nares Strait. Throughout the Holocene, the evolution of contributions of these two sources hint to the timing of the ice break-up in Kennedy Channel, north of Kane Basin, which led to the complete opening of Nares Strait [3]. The newly established gateway of material transported to the core location from the north via Kennedy Channel is recorded by increased contribution of northern Ellesmere Island detrital sediment input. This shift from a Greenland (Inglefield Land) dominated sediment input to a northern Ellesmere Island dominated sediment input supports the hypothesis of the newly proposed timing of the complete opening of Nares Strait at 8.3&amp;#160;ka&amp;#160;BP [3] and highlights a progressive trend towards modern-like conditions, reached at about 4&amp;#160;ka&amp;#160;BP.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;References:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] England (1999) Quaternary Science Reviews, 18(3), 421&amp;#8211;456. [2] Jennings et al. (2011) Oceanography, 24(3), 26-41. [3] Georgiadis et al. (2018) Climate of the Past, 14 (12), 1991-2010.&lt;/p&gt;


1966 ◽  
Vol 6 (45) ◽  
pp. 383-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. M. Koerner

The pattern of accumulation on the Devon Island ice cap is described. There is an area of minimum accumulation encircling the highest part of the ice cap and 100–200 m. below it. Below this zone, accumulation gradually increases to a maximum near the ice-cap edge. The overall pattern is related to snow transport by katabatic winds. There is a regional accumulation pattern of high accumulation (ca. 40.0 cm. water equivalent) in the south-east part of the ice cap and an area of low accumulation (ca. 11 0 cm. water equivalent) in the north-west. This east-south-east to west-north-west accumulation gradient is related to cyclonic activity to the east in Baffin Bay, and it is probably intensified by the presence of open water in the same area.


1966 ◽  
Vol 6 (45) ◽  
pp. 383-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. M. Koerner

The pattern of accumulation on the Devon Island ice cap is described. There is an area of minimum accumulation encircling the highest part of the ice cap and 100–200 m. below it. Below this zone, accumulation gradually increases to a maximum near the ice-cap edge. The overall pattern is related to snow transport by katabatic winds. There is a regional accumulation pattern of high accumulation (ca. 40.0 cm. water equivalent) in the south-east part of the ice cap and an area of low accumulation (ca. 11 0 cm. water equivalent) in the north-west. This east-south-east to west-north-west accumulation gradient is related to cyclonic activity to the east in Baffin Bay, and it is probably intensified by the presence of open water in the same area.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Jackson ◽  
Anna Bang Kvorning ◽  
Audrey Limoges ◽  
Eleanor Georgiadis ◽  
Steffen M. Olsen ◽  
...  

AbstractBaffin Bay hosts the largest and most productive of the Arctic polynyas: the North Water (NOW). Despite its significance and active role in water mass formation, the history of the NOW beyond the observational era remains poorly known. We reconcile the previously unassessed relationship between long-term NOW dynamics and ocean conditions by applying a multiproxy approach to two marine sediment cores from the region that, together, span the Holocene. Declining influence of Atlantic Water in the NOW is coeval with regional records that indicate the inception of a strong and recurrent polynya from ~ 4400 yrs BP, in line with Neoglacial cooling. During warmer Holocene intervals such as the Roman Warm Period, a weaker NOW is evident, and its reduced capacity to influence bottom ocean conditions facilitated northward penetration of Atlantic Water. Future warming in the Arctic may have negative consequences for this vital biological oasis, with the potential knock-on effect of warm water penetration further north and intensified melt of the marine-terminating glaciers that flank the coast of northwest Greenland.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4-2021) ◽  
pp. 28-36
Author(s):  
O. V. Shabalina ◽  
◽  
K. S. Kazakova ◽  

The article presents materials from the personal fund of the largest hydropower engineer of the North-West of the USSR S. V. Grigoriev, belonging to the Museum-Archive of History of Studying and Exploration of the European North of the Barents Centre of Humanities of the KSC RAS. The personal documents of the scientist and the practitioner are sources of biographical information given in the article and potential sources for research in the field of the history of the scientific study of water bodies, rivers and the development of hydropower in the Arctic.


1989 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 152-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
W.M. Sackinger ◽  
M.O. Jeffries ◽  
H. Tippens ◽  
F. Li ◽  
M. Lu

The largest ice island presently known to exist in the Arctic Ocean has a mass of about 700 × 106 tonnes, an area of about 26 km2, and a mean thickness of 42.5 m. Known as Hobson’s Ice Island, this large ice feature has been tracked almost continuously since August 1983 with a succession of Argos buoys. In this paper, two particular ice-island movement episodes near the north-west coast of Axel Heiberg Island are described: 6–16 May 1986 and 14–21 June 1986. Each movement episode is analyzed in terms of the forces acting on the ice island, including wind shear, water drag, water shear, Coriolis force, sea-surface tilt, and pack-ice force. Ice-island movement is generally preceded by an offshore surface wind, and a threshold wind speed of 6 m s°1 appears to be necessary to initiate ice-island motion. An angle of 50° between surface wind and ice-island movement direction is noted during one episode. The pack-ice force, which appears to be the dominant arresting factor of ice-island motion for these two episodes, varies from 100° to 180° to the left of the ice-island velocity direction, depending upon whether the ice island is accelerating or decelerating.


1971 ◽  
Vol 10 (59) ◽  
pp. 245-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Souchez

AbstractThe north-west margin of the main ice cap in south-western Ellesmere Island is fringed by ice-cored moraines. The formation of these moraines seems to be more complex than simple upwarping of the foliation bands at the margin of the ice cap. At one locality, where outer and inner zones can be distinguished on the basis of lithological composition, debris in the outer zone is composed of material from farther back under the ice cap than debris in the inner zone. In another locality, localized ridges cross each other independently of the trend of the main ridge.The time required to obtain the quantity of debris forming the moraine at the ice surface is estimated to be between 65 and 300 years.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Egidio Marino ◽  
Javier González ◽  
Teresa Medialdea ◽  
Luis Somoza ◽  
Rosario Lunar ◽  
...  

&lt;p&gt;The world increasing demand of electric vehicles (EVs) that use lithium-ion batteries (LIB), in which cobalt is one of the essential elements, focused the attention on its demand that is calculated will increase of 7-13% annually until 2030. The actual production of cobalt, usually extract as by-product of nickel and copper mine, is reduced to almost 20 countries between which the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the bigger producer with 55% of the world production. In Europe cobalt is produced only in Finland that actually provides 2.300 tonnes, the 2% of the world production. In this way several projects have been promoted by European Union, with the Raw Material Initiative, in order to find and evaluate the sustainable production of important materials in Europe.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;MINDeSEA[1] project is part of the GeoERA and represent the collaboration of 12 national geological institution partners, to characterize marine deposits and their contents in Critical Raw Materials (CRM) and to generate a comprehensive cartography and metallogenic models of them. The first preliminary map produced in 2019 represents the localization and evaluation of cobalt rich deposits in the oceans within the EEZ and ECS of the European countries. &amp;#160;Cobalt deposits are represented essentially by hydrogenetic Fe-Mn crusts located essentially in the Macaronesian area of the north east Atlantic Ocean (in the Portugal and Spain), submarine plateaus, as the Galicia Bank (in the north west Spanish) and in the Arctic Ocean ridges (Norway and Iceland). The report differentiates between occurrences (&lt;0.05 wt. %) and deposits (&gt;0.05 wt. %), with the possibility of more than 200 Mt resources per potential deposit.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Detailed mineralogical, geochemical and metallogenic studies are being developed in crusts from the Macaronesia. Fe-Mn crusts absorb dissolved elements in seawaters on the surface of the fresh precipitated oxy-hydroxides during their slow growth through millions of years. Several elements are concentrated in Fe-Mn crusts and between them cobalt is one of the most enriched trace metals (average 0.6 wt. %) accompanied by other strategic and critical metals such as nickel, copper, tellurium, molybdenum and rare earth elements plus yttrium (REY) (respectively 3000, 500, 150, 500 and 3500 &amp;#181;g/g). Micro Raman and micro X-Ray diffraction can be used to differentiate the mineralogy in laminae of less than 20 microns. On the other hand, electron probe micro-analyzer (EPMA) and Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), are useful in order to quantify contents of CRM in the different mineral phases. These are innovative techniques in order to identify critical-elements bearing minerals and thus choose the metallurgic method for a more efficient and sustainable extraction of the interesting elements.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The evaluation of a seamount as a future mine site has to take into account all these mineralogical and chemical features as well as a proper knowledge of the seamount (morpho-structure, geology, oceanography, ecosystems) and the Fe-Mn crust thickness and extension&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;div&gt; &lt;p&gt;[1] This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 731166&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;


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