The INBIS (Interfan Bear Island and Storfjorden) channel system is a rare example of a deep-sea channel on a glaciated margin. The system is located between two trough mouth fans (TMFs) on the continental slope of the NW Barents Sea: the Bear Island and the Storfjorden–Kveithola TMFs. New bathymetric data in the upper part of this channel system show a series of gullies that incise the shelf break ...

Cold seep habitats with authigenic carbonates and associated chemosynthetic communities in glacially influenced terrains constitute an important part of the benthic ecosystems, but they are difficult to detect in large-scale seabed surveys. The areas they occupy are normally small, and survey platforms and sensors allowing high-resolution spatial characterization are necessary. We have developed a ...

New geochronological, isotopic and geochemical data were obtained from the late Paleoproterozoic and Mesoproterozoic magmatic units of the Nico Pérez Terrane (Uruguay). A U-Pb LA-ICP-MS zircon age of 1768 ± 11 Ma confirms the Statherian age for the Illescas rapakivi intrusion, being thus comparable with the age of the Campanero Unit felsic orthogneisses. Though both the Illescas and Campanero ...

The new international network PalaeoArc (Processes and Palaeo Environmental Changes in the Arctic: From Past to Present) held its first meeting in Poznan, 20-24 May 2019. The meeting was hosted by the Faculty of Geographical and Geological Sciences, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, and organized by a local committee chaired by Witold Szczuciński.

The pyrite sulfur isotope record of the 1.98 Ga Zaonega Formation in the Onega Basin, NW Russia, has played a central role in understanding ocean-atmosphere composition and inferring worldwide fluctuations of the seawater sulfate reservoir during the pivotal times of the Paleoproterozoic Era. That, in turn, has led to a concept that Earth's atmospheric oxygen levels underwent global-scale changes. ...

In modern environments, pore water geochemistry and modelling simulations allow the study of methane (CH₄) sources and sinks at any geographic location. However, reconstructing CH₄ dynamics in geological records is challenging. Here, we show that the benthic foraminiferal δ³⁴S can be used to reconstruct the fux (i.e., difusive vs. advective) and timing of CH₄ ...

Large amounts of methane are trapped within gas hydrate in subseabed sediments in the Arctic Ocean, and bottom-water warming may induce the release of methane from the seafloor. Yet the effect of seasonal temperature variations on methane seepage activity remains unknown as surveys in Arctic seas are conducted mainly in summer. Here we compare the activity of cold seeps along the gas hydrate stability ...

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 ...

We investigate methane seepage on the shallow shelf west of Svalbard during three consecutive years, using discrete sampling of the water column, echosounder-based gas flux estimates, water mass properties, and numerical dispersion modelling. The results reveal three distinct hydrographic conditions in spring and summer, showing that the methane content in the water column is controlled by a combination ...

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 ...