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dc.contributor.authorHanken, Nils-Martin
dc.contributor.authorSztybor, Kamila
dc.contributor.authorHøeg, Helge I.
dc.contributor.authorKarlsen, Dag Arild
dc.contributor.authorRasmussen, Tine Lander
dc.contributor.authorAbay, Tesfamariam Berhane
dc.date.accessioned2022-11-28T12:19:23Z
dc.date.available2022-11-28T12:19:23Z
dc.date.issued2022-11-23
dc.description.abstractOne of four marine cores of glacial sediments collected from a water depth of about 1200 m at Vestnesa Ridge (west of Svalbard) contained small fragments of coal, charcoal and moss. This material was restricted to a single level, and 14C dating of bivalves both above and below indicates an age of c. 18.0–15.5 kyr BP. Chemical analyses of the coal indicate that the provenance area was from the northern part of Andøya, North Norway. The moss fragment was identified as Aulacomnium turgidum, which is a well-known species from the northern part of Andøya, which was an ice-free refugium with tundra vegetation during the Weichselian maximum. One small piece of charcoal with reasonably well-preserved cell structures is derived from burnt Salix sp. These findings are important, because they demonstrate the presence of drift ice carrying organic material from the northern part of Andøya towards the west coast of Svalbard during Heinrich event H1, an event of extensive ice-rafting in the Nordic seas. This also implies that some components of the vascular plant communities growing on Svalbard today, might originally have been imported as seeds floating on sea ice, before stranding along the coast of Svalbard. The plant colonization of Svalbard can thus have started already during Heinrich event H1. The finding of charcoal can only be explained by a fire due to lightning and not by campfire, because the first human population arrived in northern Norway at a much later time (probably during Preboreal). The charcoal is thus from the oldest known wild fire in Norway.en_US
dc.identifier.citationHanken, Sztybor, Høeg, Karlsen, Rasmussen, Abay. Late Quaternary terrigenous plant and coaly fragments found at Vestnesa Ridge, Fram Strait: implications for postglacial plant colonization at Svalbard. Lethaia: An International Journal of Palaeontology and Stratigraphy. 2022en_US
dc.identifier.cristinIDFRIDAID 2079501
dc.identifier.doi10.18261/let.55.4.6
dc.identifier.issn0024-1164
dc.identifier.issn1502-3931
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10037/27573
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisherUniversitetsforlageten_US
dc.relation.journalLethaia: An International Journal of Palaeontology and Stratigraphy
dc.rights.accessRightsopenAccessen_US
dc.rights.holderCopyright 2022 The Author(s)en_US
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0en_US
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)en_US
dc.titleLate Quaternary terrigenous plant and coaly fragments found at Vestnesa Ridge, Fram Strait: implications for postglacial plant colonization at Svalbarden_US
dc.type.versionpublishedVersionen_US
dc.typeJournal articleen_US
dc.typeTidsskriftartikkelen_US
dc.typePeer revieweden_US


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Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)