Circum-Arctic glacial ice is melting in an unprecedented mode, and release of currently trapped geological methane may act as a positive feedback on ice-sheet retreat during global warming. Evidence for methane release during the penultimate (Eemian, ca. 125 ka) interglacial, a period with less glacial sea ice and higher temperatures than today, is currently absent. Here, we argue that based on ...

Recent developments in seismic acquisition systems and seismic data visualization have contributed to improve the imaging of seismic geomorphologies over a broad range of topics. This study focuses on a new high-resolution P-Cable 3D seismic cube located in the Hoop area in the SW Barents Sea. The scientific motivations of the study are (1) to document glacial landforms on a meter-scale, (2) to study ...

Processes occurring at the grounding zone of marine terminating ice streams are crucial to marginal stability, influencing ice discharge over the grounding‐line, and thereby regulating ice‐sheet mass balance. We present new marine geophysical data sets over a ~30×40 km area from a former ice‐stream grounding zone in Storfjordrenna, a large cross‐shelf trough in the western Barents Sea, south of ...

Paleoproterozoic sedimentary successions are important archives of the redox evolution of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. Efforts to unravel the dynamics of our planet’s early oxygenation from this archive rely on various geochemical proxies, including stable carbon and sulfur isotopes. However, ancient metasedimentary rocks often experienced early- and late-stage (bio)geochemical processes making ...

<p><i>Background - </i>High primary productivity in the midst of high toxicity defines hydrocarbon seeps; this feature usually results in significantly higher biomass, but in lower diversity communities at seeps rather than in the surrounding non-seep benthos. Qualitative estimates indicate that this dichotomy does not necessarily hold true in high latitude regions with respect to megafauna. Instead, ...

The aim of this study is to identify the environmental impact of drill cuttings (DC) released around three wells drilled in 1992, 2000 and 2012 in the SW Barents Sea. Foraminiferal assemblages are studied in cores taken along transects <250 m from wells. Well E-1992 shows no impact of DC on foraminifera indicating that low amounts of released DC limit environmental impact. Impact at wells G-2000 and ...

<p>Modern sediment deposits on continental margins form a vast reservoir of particulate matter that is regularly affected by resuspension processes. Resuspension by bottom trawling on shelves with strong fishing activity can modify the scale of natural disturbance by waves and currents. Recent field data show that the impact of bottom trawls on fine sediment resuspension per unit surface is comparable ...

Sub-sea Arctic methane and gas hydrate reservoirs are expected to be severely impacted by ocean temperature increase and sea-level rise. Our understanding of the gas emission phenomenon in the Arctic is however partial, especially in deep environments where the access is difficult and hydro-acoustic surveys are sporadic. Here, we report on the first continuous pore-pressure and temperature measurements ...

Despite more than a century of investigation, the relationship between basement rocks throughout the Svalbard Archipelago is still a mystery. Though these rocks display similar geochronological ages, they show significantly different metamorphic grades and structures. Thus far, Svalbard was believed to be composed of three terranes of rocks formed hundreds–thousands of kilometers apart and accreted ...

During expedition MARIA S. MERIAN MSM57/2 to the Svalbard margin offshore Prins Karls Forland, the seafloor drill rig MARUM‐MeBo70 was used to assess the landward termination of the gas hydrate system in water depths between 340 and 446 m. The study region shows abundant seafloor gas vents, clustered at a water depth of ∼400 m. The sedimentary environment within the upper 100 m below seafloor (mbsf) ...