Geomorphological and sedimentological records of Greenland Ice Sheet advance and retreat on the continental shelf offshore of NE Greenland during the last glaciation

Marine geophysical data combined with radiocarbon dated sediment cores provide a record of the advance and retreat of the ancestral Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS) across the continental shelf offshore of NE Greenland during the last glaciation. Today, NEGIS is the largest ice stream to drain the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS), holding a sea-level equivalent of 1.1-1.4 m. However, the longer-term history of the ice stream, especially on the adjoining outer continental shelf has, to date, been poorly constrained. Streamlined subglacial landforms record grounded ice flow in the outer shelf section in cross shelf bathymetric troughs, with mega-scale glacial lineations recording former streaming flow towards the shelf edge. Flow transverse landforms in the form of downlow-tapering, sediment wedges occur at the shelf edge and on the outer-mid shelf of the bathymetric troughs. These landforms differ in their morphology from the classic ‘ramp-step’ form of typical grounding wedges but are similarly interpreted as a form of grounding-zone wedge in which sediment prograded and thinned away from the grounding-zone. The wedges record a shelf-edge terminating, grounded ancestral NEGIS, as well as the subsequent episodic retreat of the ice stream inshore during deglaciation. Beyond the shelf edge, glacigenic debris flows imaged on acoustic stratigraphic profiles and recovered in sediment cores document sediment delivery onto the slope; such deposits are typical of submarine slopes offshore of shelf-edge terminating palaeo-ice streams. On the outer shelf subglacial tills and grounding-zone proximal sediments overlain by deglacial stratified glacimarine sediments record ice stream advance and retreat in the troughs. Radiocarbon dates from glacimarine sediments in these cores indicate early deglaciation from the shelf edge but with relatively slow rates of subsequent ice-stream retreat across the outer shelf.