Beach Ridge Geomorphology at Cape Grinnell,northern Greenland: A Less Icy Arctic in the Mid-Holocene |
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| Authors: | Owen K Mason |
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| Institution: | Geoarch Alaska , PO Box 91554, Anchorage , AK , 99509 E-mail: geoarch@ptialaska.net |
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| Abstract: | Geografisk Tidsskrift—Danish Journal of Geography 110(2):337–355, 2010 In northern Greenland, the Cape Grinnell beach ridge plain offers a 9,000year multi-proxy record for isostatic recovery, storm history, and the hydrological changes related to precipitation and slope evolution. The chronology of uplifted beach ridges is constrained by ten geological 14C ages on shell and sea mammal bones and eleven upper limiting ages from archaeological sites that span the last 3,000 years. Beach ridges formed under the influence of open water storms with renewed frequency and intensity ca. 3 ka and 1 ka ago. A lack of shell may reflect cooler sea surface temperatures. The presence and absence of ice can be inferred by push-features. Three intervals of heightened precipitation produced extensive fan deltas: (a) after 9 ka BP (b) prior to 4.5 ka BP and (c) during the Little Ice Age (AD 1350–1900). Active solifluction lobes and colluvia cover beach ridge deposits that are between 9 and 7 ka old. |
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| Keywords: | Beach ridges storm history arctic coastal geomorphology paleoclimate Greenland |
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