Processes influencing differences in Arctic and Antarctic Trough Mouth Fan sedimentology

Trough Mouth Fans (TMFs) are sediment depocentres that form along high-latitude continental margins at the mouths of some cross-shelf troughs. They reflect the dynamics of past ice sheets over multiple glacial cycles and processes operating on (formerly) glaciated continental shelves and slopes, such as erosion, reworking, transport and deposition. The similarities and differences in TMF morphology and formation processes of the Arctic and Antarctic regions remain poorly constrained. Here, we analyse the dimensions and geometries of 15 TMFs from Arctic and Antarctic margins and the grain-size distribution of 82 sediment cores centred on them. We compare the grain-size composition of sub- and proglacial diamictons deposited on the shelves and glacigenic-debris flows (GDFs) deposited on the adjacent TMFs and find a significant difference between Arctic and Antarctic margins. Antarctic margins show a coarser grain-size composition for both GDFs and shelf diamictons. This significant difference provides insight into high-latitude sediment input, transportation and glacial/interglacial regimes. We suggest that surface run-off and river discharge are responsible for enhanced fine-grained sediment input in the Arctic compared to in the Antarctic

Climate-controlled submarine landslides on the Antarctic continental margin

Antarctica’s continental margins pose an unknown submarine landslide-generated tsunami risk to Southern Hemisphere populations and infrastructure. Understanding the factors driving slope failure is essential to assessing future geohazards. Here, we present a multidisciplinary study of a major submarine landslide complex along the eastern Ross Sea continental slope (Antarctica) that identifies preconditioning factors and failure mechanisms. Weak layers, identified beneath three submarine landslides, consist of distinct packages of interbedded Miocene- to Pliocene-age diatom oozes and glaciomarine diamicts. The observed lithological differences, which arise from glacial to interglacial variations in biological productivity, ice proximity, and ocean circulation, caused changes in sediment deposition that inherently preconditioned slope failure. These recurrent Antarctic submarine landslides were likely triggered by seismicity associated with glacioisostatic readjustment, leading to failure within the preconditioned weak layers. Ongoing climate warming and ice retreat may increase regional glacioisostatic seismicity, triggering Antarctic submarine landslides

Sub-ice-shelf sediments record history of twentieth-century retreat of Pine Island Glacier

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature20136The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the largest potential sources of rising sea levels. Over the past 40 years, glaciers flowing into the Amundsen Sea sector of the ice sheet have thinned at an accelerating rate, and several numerical models suggest that unstable and irreversible retreat of the grounding line—which marks the boundary between grounded ice and floating ice shelf—is underway. Understanding this recent retreat requires a detailed knowledge of grounding-line history, but the locations of the grounding line before the advent of satellite monitoring in the 1990s are poorly dated. In particular, a history of grounding-line retreat is required to understand the relative roles of contemporaneous ocean-forced change and of ongoing glacier response to an earlier perturbation in driving ice-sheet loss. Here we show that the present thinning and retreat of Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica is part of a climatically forced trend that was triggered in the 1940s. Our conclusions arise from analysis of sediment cores recovered beneath the floating Pine Island Glacier ice shelf, and constrain the date at which the grounding line retreated from a prominent seafloor ridge. We find that incursion of marine water beyond the crest of this ridge, forming an ocean cavity beneath the ice shelf, occurred in 1945 (±12 years); final ungrounding of the ice shelf from the ridge occurred in 1970 (±4 years). The initial opening of this ocean cavity followed a period of strong warming of West Antarctica, associated with El Niño activity. Furthermore our results suggest that, even when climate forcing weakened, ice-sheet retreat continued.USDO

On the origin of large shelf embayments on glaciated margins—effects of lateral ice flux variations and glacio-dynamics west of Svalbard

Glaciated continental shelves are characterised by large amphitheatre-like embayments between prominent cross-shelf troughs. The integration of swath bathymetry and high-resolution seismic data (3D, 2D) collected across the western Svalbard continental margin indicates how such embayments form. Although their bathymetric expression resembles headwall scarps of submarine slope failures, the shelf embayments are the result of the interplay between sediment dynamics and transport underneath fast-moving ice streams in the cross-shelf troughs and the slower-moving parts of the ice sheets on the adjacent shallower shelf banks during full glacial conditions. This is supported by (1) the absence of major landslide deposits at their toe, (2) continuous prograding shelf deposition and (3) absence of landslide-related faulting. Instead, the seismic data suggest a depositional origin of the shelf embayments that is characterised by continuous sediment input at lower rates off a slow-moving ice mass in the centre of the embayment which is fringed by the lateral ice-stream ridges. These findings put into perspective the importance of submarine slope failure on glaciated margins

Submarine mass failures as tsunami sources : their climate control

Recent research on submarine mass failures (SMFs) shows that they are a source of hazardous tsunamis, with the tsunami magnitude mainly dependent on water depth of failure, SMF volume and failure mechanism, cohesive slump or fragmental landslide. A major control on the mechanism of SMFs is the sediment type, together with its post-depositional alteration. The type of sediment, fine- or coarse-grained, its rate of deposition together with post-depositional processes may all be influenced by climate. Post-depositional processes, termed sediment ‘preconditioning’, are known to promote instability and failure. Climate may also control the triggering of SMFs, for example through earthquake loading or cyclic loading from storm waves or tides. Instantaneous triggering by other mechanisms such as fluid overpressuring and hydrate instability is controversial, but is here considered unlikely. However, these mechanisms are known to promote sediment instability. SMFs occur in numerous environments, including the open continental shelf, submarine canyon/fan systems, fjords, active river deltas and convergent margins. In all these environments there is a latitudinal variation in the scale of SMFs. The database is limited, but the greatest climate influence appears to be in high latitudes where glacial/interglacial cyclicity has considerable control on sedimentation, preconditioning and triggering. Consideration of the different types of SMFs in the context of their climate controls provides additional insight into their potential hazard in sourcing tsunamis. For example, in the Atlantic, where SMFs are common, the tsunami hazard under the present-day climate may not be as great as their common occurrence suggests