The Arctic is undergoing rapid climate and environmental change, but understanding the processes driving this transformation requires a longer-term perspective. Marine sediment archives preserve evidence of past changes in ocean circulation, sea-ice conditions, ice-sheet dynamics, freshwater discharge, sediment transport, productivity, biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem changes across a wide range of timescales.
Shallow coring methods are suitable for obtaining detailed information on late Quaternary ice-ocean-climate variability, while ocean drilling records extends the perspective into older Cenozoic time windows when climate backgrounds were, substantially different from the present. Together, these archives provide complementary perspectives on rapid and long-term Arctic climate variability, helping to better understand global processes and constrain model predictions.
This session invites contributions based on the study of marine sediment cores and ocean drilling records and corresponding site surveys from the Arctic Ocean and surrounding continental margins. We particularly welcome studies integrating sedimentological, stratigraphic, micropaleontological, palaeogenomic, geochemical, paleomagnetic, physical-properties, and geophysical datasets to develop robust age models and paleoenvironmental reconstructions.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Arctic Ocean circulation and variability across the Arctic gateways;
- sea-ice evolution and ocean–ice–atmosphere interactions;
- ice-sheet growth, retreat, and instability;
- sediment provenance and depositional processes;
- palaeoceanographic and palaeoclimatic reconstructions across the Cenozoic;
- past marine ecosystem and biodiversity changes, including sedimentary ancient DNA
- abrupt climate events and glacial–interglacial transitions;
- seismic stratigraphy and geophysical constraints on sedimentary archives;
- development and correlation of age models using multidisciplinary and novel approaches;
We particularly encourage contributions that bridge different spatial and temporal scales and combine multiple archives and methodologies. The session aims to provide a forum for connecting high-resolution shallow-core studies with the longer-term perspective offered by ocean drilling, thereby improving our understanding of the evolution and sensitivity of the Arctic climate system.