Late Quaternary terrigenous plant and coaly fragments found at the Vestnesa Ridge, Fram Strait: implications for postglacial plant colonization at Svalbard

Abstract

Knowledge of the variation in sea-ice extent in the subpolar North Atlantic during the lateglacial and deglacial periods is still limited. According to the reconstructions by Müller & Stein (2014) there was a permanent sea-ice cover during the transition between the last glacial maximum and Heinrich event H1 (time interval 18,000–15,500 BP). However, Sarnthein et al . (1995, 2003), Weinelt et al . (1996), Nørgaard-Pedersen et al. (2003) and Zamelczyk et al . (2014) have shown that large parts of the Nordic Seas were ice free during the summers of the Last Glacial Maximum. During Heinrich Event H1 in the early deglaciation, the permanent sea-ice layer broke up with an export of sea ice and icebergs to the North Atlantic. Quaternary