Calanus species are the main link between primary producers and higher trophic-level organisms in the Barents Sea. The natural mortality rate is an essential parameter for determining the standing stock of Calanus, but it is also one of the most uncertain parameters in present knowledge. The level of human activity, and the associated risk of pollution, is increasing in the Barents Sea, and knowledge ...

Cold seeps release methane (CH₄) from the seafloor to the water column, which fuels microbially mediated aerobic methane oxidation (MOx). Methane-oxidising bacteria (MOB) utilise excess methane, and the MOB biomass serves as a carbon source in the food web. Yet, it remains unclear if and how MOx modifies the composition of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in cold seeps. We investigated MOx ...

Arctic sea ice coverage is shrinking in response to global climate change and summer ice-free conditions in the Arctic Ocean are predicted by the end of the century. The validity of this prediction could potentially be tested through the reconstruction of the climate of the Pliocene epoch (5.33–2.58 million years ago), an analogue of a future warmer Earth. Here we show that, in the Eurasian sector ...

A first-principle micromagnetic and statistical calculation of viscous remanent magnetization (VRM) in an ensemble of cubic magnetite pseudo-single domain (PSD) particles is presented. The theoretical methods developed apply to all magnetic particle sizes, from single domain to multidomain. The numerical implementation is based on a fast relaxation algorithm for finding optimal transition paths ...

Continued warming of the Arctic Ocean in coming decades is projected to trigger the release of teragrams (1 Tg = 106 tons) of methane from thawing subsea permafrost on shallow continental shelves and dissociation of methane hydrate on upper continental slopes. On the shallow shelves (<100 m water depth), methane released from the seafloor may reach the atmosphere and potentially amplify global ...

A detailed facies study of Early Permian strata within NE Svalbard reveals a fundamental change of the depositional setting, from a restricted-marine, warm-water carbonate platform to an open-marine, temperate-water, mixed siliciclastic-carbonate ramp. The uppermost strata of the Gipshuken Formation (Templet and Sørfonna members; Sakmarian–early Artinskian?) consist of microbialites (algal mats), ...

To reconstruct the climatic and paleoceanographic variability offshore Northeast Greenland during the last ~10 ka with multidecadal resolution, sediment core PS93/025 from the outermost North-East Greenland continental shelf (80.5°N) was studied by a variety of micropaleontological, sedimentological and isotopic methods. High foraminiferal fluxes, together with high proportions of ice-rafted debris ...

The SW Barents Sea was subjected to significant uplift and erosion during the Cenozoic, processes that are believed to have had a significant impact on hydrocarbon maturation and migration in the area. The current study uses compaction of shale- and sand-dominated layers to make a map of net apparent erosion throughout the SW Barents Sea. The map shows regional trends consistent with deep-seated ...

Ice-stream dynamics are strongly controlled by processes taking place at the ice/bed interface where subglacial water both lubricates the base and saturates any existing, underlying sediment. Large parts of the former Eurasian ice sheet were underlain by thick sequences of soft, marine sediments and many areas are imprinted with geomorphological features indicative of fast flow and wet basal conditions. ...

Although the permanently to seasonally ice-covered Arctic Ocean is a unique and sensitive component in the Earth’s climate system, the knowledge of its long-term climate history remains very limited due to the restricted number of pre-Quaternary sedimentary records. During Polarstern Expedition PS87/2014, we discovered multiple submarine landslides along Lomonosov Ridge. Removal of younger ...