The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) expedition 347 cored sediments from different settings of the Baltic Sea covering the last glacial–interglacial cycle. The main aim was to study the geological development of the Baltic Sea in relation to the extreme climate variability of the region with changing ice cover and major shifts in temperature, salinity, and biological communities. Using the Greatship Manisha as a European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD) mission-specific platform, we recovered 1.6 km of core from nine sites of which four were additionally cored for microbiology. The sites covered the gateway to the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean, several sub-basins in the southern Baltic Sea, a deep basin in the central Baltic Sea, and a river estuary in the north.
The waxing and waning of the Scandinavian ice sheet has profoundly affected the Baltic Sea sediments. During theWeichselian, progressing glaciers reshaped the submarine landscape and displaced sedimentary deposits from earlier Quaternary time. As the glaciers retreated they left a complex pattern of till, sand, and lacustrine clay, which in the basins has since been covered by a thick deposit of Holocene, organic-rich clay. Due to the stratified water column of the brackish Baltic Sea and the recurrent and widespread anoxia, the deeper basins harbor laminated sediments that provide a unique opportunity for high-resolution chronological studies.
The Baltic Sea is a eutrophic intra-continental sea that is strongly impacted by terrestrial runoff and nutrient fluxes. The Holocene deposits are recorded today to be up to 50m deep and geochemically affected by diagenetic alterations driven by organic matter degradation. Many of the cored sequences were highly supersaturated with respect to methane, which caused strong degassing upon core recovery. The depth distributions of conservative sea water ions still reflected the transition at the end of the last glaciation from fresh-water clays to Holocene brackish mud. High-resolution sampling and analyses of interstitial water chemistry revealed the intensive mineralization and zonation of the predominant biogeochemical processes. Quantification of microbial cells in the sediments yielded some of the highest cell densities yet recorded by scientific drilling.
Despite many years of study, the processes involved in the development of the continental margin of southern Africa and the distinctive topography of the hinterland remain poorly understood. Previous thermochronological studies carried out within a monotonic cooling framework have failed to take into account constraints provided by Mesozoic sedimentary basins along the southern margin. We report apatite fission track analysis and vitrinite reflectance data in outcrop samples from the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous sedimentary fill of the Oudtshoorn, Gamtoos and Algoa Basins (Uitenhage Group), as well as isolated sedimentary remnants further west, plus underlying Paleozoic rocks (Cape Supergroup) and Permian-Triassic sandstones from the Karoo Supergroup around the Great Escarpment. Results define a series of major regional cooling episodes. Latest Triassic to Early Jurassic cooling which began between 205 and 180 Ma is seen dominantly in basement flanks to the Algoa and Gamtoos Basins. This episode may have affected a wider region but in most places any effects have been overprinted by later events. The effects of Early Cretaceous (beginning between 145 and 130 Ma) and Early to mid-Cretaceous (120-100 Ma) cooling are both delimited by major structures, while Late Cretaceous (85-75 Ma) cooling appears to have affected the whole region. These cooling events are all interpreted as dominantly reflecting exhumation. Higher Late Cretaceous paleotemperatures in samples from the core of the Swartberg Range, coupled with evidence for localised Cenozoic cooling, are interpreted as representing Cenozoic differential exhumation of the mountain range. Late Cretaceous paleotemperatures between 60 degrees C and 90 degrees C in outcropping Uitenhage Group sediments from the Oudtshoorn, Gamtoos and Algoa Basins require burial by between 1.2 and 2.2 km prior to Late Cretaceous exhumation. Because these sediments lie in depositional contact with underlying Paleozoic rocks in many places, relatively uniform Late Cretaceous paleotemperatures across most of the region, in samples of both basin fill and underlying basement, suggest the whole region may have been buried prior to Late Cretaceous exhumation. Cenozoic cooling (beginning between 30 and 20 Ma) is focussed mainly in mountainous regions and is interpreted as representing denudation which produced the modern-day relief. Features such as the Great Escarpment are not related to continental break up, as is often supposed, but are much younger (post-30 Ma). This history of post-breakup burial and subsequent episodic exhumation is very different from conventional ideas of passive margin evolution, and requires a radical re-think of models for development of continental margins.
This paper presents an age–depth model based on an ultra-high-resolution, 80-m-thick sedimentary succession from a marine continental shelf basin, the Kattegat. This is an area of dynamic deglaciation of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet during the Late Pleistocene. The Kattegat is also a transitional area between the saline North Sea and the brackish Baltic Sea. As such, it records general development of currents and exchange between these two systems. Data for the succession were provided through the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Site M0060. The site indicates onset of deglaciation at c. 18 ka BP and relatively continuous sedimentation until 13 ka BP. At this point, sediments record a hiatus until c. 9–7 ka BP. The uppermost sedimentary unit contains redeposited material, but it is estimated to represent only the last c. 9–7 ka BP. The age–depth model is based on 17 select, radiocarbon-dated samples and is integrated with a set of physical and chemical proxies. The integrated records provide novel constraints on the timing of major palaeoenvironmental changes, such as the transition from glaciomarine proximal to glaciomarine distal and marine conditions, and their connections to known major events and processes in the region and the North Atlantic. Depositional evidence specifically documents connections between the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet behaviour and atmospheric and oceanic warming. Glacial retreat may have also depended on topographic factors such as changes in basin width and depth, linked to relative sea level changes and land uplift. The results indicate an early response of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet to changing climate, and the ice sheet's possible influence on oceanic circulation during the Late Pleistocene deglaciation.
Cenozoic uplift and erosion have an important impact on petroleum systems along East Greenland. We have undertaken a regional study of the thermo-tectonic development of the East Greenland margin (68-75°N) based on apatite fission-track analysis (AFTA) data and analysis of the large-scale landscapes. Our results reveal a long history of post-Palaeozoic burial and exhumation across the region. Following breakup at the Paleocene-Eocene transition, the margin underwent kilometerscale burial beneath a cover of Eocene basalts and sediments. Subsequently, three regional phases of uplift and exhumation subsequently shaped the present-day margin. A late Eocene phase of uplift led to formation of a regional erosion surface near sea level (the Upper Planation Surface, UPS). Uplift of the UPS in the late Miocene led to formation of the Lower Planation Surface (LPS) by incision below the uplifted UPS, and a Pliocene phase led to incision of valleys and fjords below the uplifted LPS, leaving mountain peaks reaching 3.7 km above sea level. Preliminary AFTA results from northern East Greenland indicate that the Eurekan Orogeny played a significant role in the thermotectonic development there, but it is difficult to distinguish between heating related to burial followed by erosion and heating caused by high heat flow or hydrothermal activity. A future study of northern East Greenland margin should thus investigate the development during the right-lateral, strike-slip tectonics that moved the Barents Sea relative to Greenland. The results are of importance in assessing the hydrocarbon prospectivity in the offshore basins because uplift and denudation of continental margins can have profound effects on the hydrocarbon system, not only through negative impact of processes but also by providing reservoir clastics to the offshore basin and by changing migration routes. Our results indicate that remnants of oil accumulations on Traill 0 are associated, not only with the deeper burial at the time of hydrocarbon formation, but also with locally increased heat flow from late Eocene intrusions. Further afield, in areas where heat flow was not enhanced, any source rocks present would have remained at lower maturity levels at the end of the Eocene.
The stratigraphic record along the continental margin of Labrador and Newfoundland provides ample evidence for vertical movements both prior to and after break-up. In the offshore domain, several major hiatuses punctuate the stratigraphic record. Along Labrador and the Grand Banks, Lower Cretaceous rocks rest on Paleozoic rocks or Precambrian basement in parts of the area. Onshore Labrador, the presence of a Cretaceous outlier on Precambrian basement adds to the evidence of one or more events of exhumation that has removed pre-Cretaceous sediments on a regional scale. Over much of the Labrador shelf, Miocene deposits are absent, and we show evidence based on vitrinite reflectance and sonic data that indicate that Miocene deposits of significant thickness may have been present prior to uplift and exhumation. We also present results from a pilot study comprising apatite fission-track analysis (AFTA) data that reveals a Phanerozic history involving a series of burial and exhumation episodes. The pilot study is a forerunner for a study of the onshore and offshore domain with three components. (1) A thermochronological study based on samples from outcrops and from onshore and offshore boreholes. (2) A stratigraphic landform analysis of the onshore study area based on mapping of denudation surfaces that will provide evidence of vertical motion using cross-cutting relationships between the denudation surfaces and stratigraphic constraints. (3) An integrated interpretation of the geological, geomorphological and thermochronological data to provide a coherent model of the timing and magnitude of the vertical movements along the margin both prior to and after break-up. Failure to account for greater depths of burial prior to exhumation may lead to serious underestimation of the petroleum resource maturity and to erroneous estimates of the timing of hydrocarbon generation. Uplift and exhumation may also lead to changes in migration routes and affect hydrocarbons present in reservoirs. Insights into the uplift history of a margin are important for understanding the sourceto- sink system of sediment input into offshore basins.
The study presents the first description and analysis of ostracod records from three sites cored in different parts of the Baltic Sea during the IODP Expedition 347, Baltic Sea Paleoenvironment. Our data present the first high-resolution ostracod records from the Late Weichselian and Holocene sediments collected across the Baltic Sea Basin. Using published data on modern ostracod species ecology of the Baltic Sea, we were able to provide ostracod-based palaeoreconstructions of the history of the region. The stratigraphical framework for the sites is based on radiocarbon-based age models. The three studied sites reveal different ostracod assemblage successions that reflect environmental changes in the study area. Site M0060, located in the Kattegat area, contains the oldest ostracod assemblages that document a marine environment with very high sedimentation rates during the most recent deglaciation. Between ~13Â 000 and 7500 cal. a BP a modern-like near-shore environment developed. Site M0059 in the southwestern Baltic Sea, Little Belt area, contains assemblages reflecting the transition from a freshwater lake to the brackish Littorina Sea between ~7500 and 7300Â cal. a BP. Site M0063 is the deepest location in the central Baltic, Landsort Deep, and yielded very limited ostracod data, but comparison with our organic carbon data allowed us to distinguish the Yoldia Sea, Ancylus Lake and Littorina Sea intervals. The ostracod record correlates well with the organic carbon record with alternation between periods of hypoxia and periods of low oxygen that still supported ostracods.
Reconstructions of past land use and related land-cover changes at local and regional scales are needed to evaluate the potential long-term impacts of land use on the coastal waters of the Baltic Sea. In this purpose, we selected the Gamleby area at the Swedish Baltic Sea coast for a case study. We use a new, high resolution pollen record from a small lake (Lillsjön) located 3.6 km NNW of the bay Gamlebyviken and detailed analysis of the available archeological data to reconstruct local land-use changes over the last 3000 years. To estimate land-cover change at local (2–3 km radius area) and regional (50 km radius area) scales we use four additional, published pollen records from two small and two large lakes (25–70 km S of Lillsjön) and the Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm, a pollen-vegetation modeling scheme. Results show that regional and local (small lakes Lillsjön and Hyttegöl) land-cover changes are comparable over the last 1500 years (Late Iron Age to present), and that landscape openness was much larger locally than regionally (difference of 20–40% cover over the last 500 years). The periods of largest potential impacts on the Gamlebyviken Bay from regional and local land use are 200–950 CE (Late Iron Age) and 1450 CE to present, and of lowest potential impacts 950–1450 CE. The question on whether the large landscape openness 1150–50 BCE and significant afforestation 50 BCE–200 CE reconstructed for Lillsjön’s area are characteristic of the Gamlebyviken region will require additional pollen records in the catchment area.