Palaeoclimate of Baffin Bay from 300,000-year record of foraminifera, dinoflagellates and pollen

Abstract

Several different models^1–5 have attempted to relate Quaternary marine and terrestrial records of ice-sheet growth in the North Atlantic region. The models are derived from either discontinuous terrestrial records, including marine fossils in raised shorelines^1,2, or from deep-sea calcareous microfossils^3,4. This study correlates Arctic marine and terrestrial data directly by comparing δ¹⁸O, foraminiferal, dinoflagellate and pollen records from a core taken in Baffin Bay. The core contains an almost continuous sequence of sediments deposited during isotope stages 1–10. Subarctic foraminifera and Atlantic dinoflagellates in early isotope stages 2, 4, 6 and 8 show that subarctic water entered southern Baffin Bay before the glacial maxima. Boreal–subarctic pollen suggest that Atlantic air flowed into Baffin Bay during the ice sheet growth phases. These data support models which postulate that open water in the Labrador Sea had an important role in supplying moisture to Laurentide and Greenland ice sheets.