Marine evidence for the last glacial advance across eastern Hudson Strait, eastern Canadian Arctic

Abstract

Data from accelerator mass spectrometer radiocarbon dated sediment cores and Huntec high-resolution seismic profiles were used to investigate the age and origin of the sediments in the Eastern Basin of Hudson Strait. The data indicate that the ice-contact and glacial-marine sediments on the basin flanks and much of the upper sequence in the deep floor of the basin were produced during the Noble Inlet advance (8.9 to 8.4 ka), the last northward expansion of the Labrador Dome on to southeastern Baffin Island. On the northern flank of Eastern Basin one sequence of ice-contact sediments and glacial-marine deposits overlies bedrock; the glacial-marine sediments are transitional upslope to ice-contact sediments, and form at least two successive ice-sheet grounding zones. The earliest abundance peaks of benthic Foramininfera in glacial-marine sediments date ca. 8.6 and 8.4 ka, and correlate to sediments near the base of the 58-m-thick glacial-marine section in the deepest part of Eastern Basin. This correlation suggests that Noble Inlet ice was grounded throughout Eastern Basin during the early part of its advance. In later stages the thinning ice produced grounding zones on the basin flanks while glacial-marine sediments were deposited in the deep basin. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.