MARINE GEOLOGY AND GLACIOLOGY

	G E O L O G I C A L I N S T I T U T E	UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS

NEWGREEN IPY 2007 - 2009, Denmark

Late Holocene records of sea ice and iceberg drift offshore West Greenland and Newfoundland – impact on human living.

The NEWGREEN project objectives are

• to study marine sediment cores for obtaining a more consistent record of late Holocene (past 5000 yrs) sea surface conditions off West Greenland and Newfoundland with special reference to sea ice and iceberg drift,
• to link this information to regional records of wind activity and large-scale ocean and atmospheric circulation records from the North Atlantic, Nordic Seas and Fram Strait, and
• to investigate possible links between (sub)Arctic environmental and climatic change and human settlement in the above region.

The main objective of the project is to provide a more consistent record of (sub)Arctic environmental and climatic conditions for human living during the past 5000 years . This will be achieved by reconstruction of late Holocene regional sea surface conditions with special reference to sea ice and iceberg drift off West Greenland and Newfoundland. This information will be linked to relevant data from the North Atlantic, Nordic Seas and Fram Strait in order to investigate possible relations between large-scale North Atlantic Ocean and atmospheric circulation changes, Arctic sea ice export and sea ice formation and iceberg drift in waters between Greenland (e.g. Disko Bugt, Jakobshavn Isbræ) and Canada (Newfoundland).

The project thus focuses on natural climate variability with special emphasis on marine climate and sea ice conditions and contrasting climatic trends off southwest Greenland when compared with the Norwegian Sea - Barents Sea region and NW Europe.

The research is based on an integrated approach to reconstruct changes in ocean currents and terrestrial environments (e.g. wind conditions), combining features of climatic variability as displayed in high-resolution marine and terrestrial sedimentary records (multiproxy approach) with archeological evidence and historical archives (e.g. whaling data) from collaborating IPY (no. 120, 'NORCLIM') partners.

The project is funded by the Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland ( KVUG )

PARTNER INSTITUTIONS

Amsterdam 'Vrije Universiteit' ('NORCLIM' coordinator)
Memorial University Newfoundland
Norwegian Polar Institute Tromsø
Durham University UK
Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde
Shirshov Institute of Oceanology Moscow (Kaliningrad)
Greenland National Museum & Archives Nuuk
The National Museum of Denmark

2008 ACTIVITIES

• marine sediment core studies ( microfossils, geochemistry, grain size and clay mineralogy, AMS C-14 and Pb-210 sediment dating,
• employment of 3 post-doc researchers for study of foraminiferal and dinoflagellate records and wind-blown sediment fraction; participation of (master) students
• Disko Bugt, RV 'Porsild' ( 'NORCLIM', Amsterdam VU) sampling and terrestrial aeolian sediment collection, South Greenland / Newfoundland
• IPY (NORCLIM, APEX, etc.) meetings for data exchange (e.g. archaeology)

GEUS
Antoon Kuijpers - aku@geus.dk
Naja Mikkelsen (GEUS) - nm@geus.dk
Catherine Jessen - cj@geus.dk
Niels Nørgaard-Pedersen - nnp@geus.dk

University of Aarhus
Marit-Solveig Seidenkrantz - mss@geo.au.dk
Sandrine Solignac -

Edited by:
Niels E. Poulsen, GEUS - nep@geus.dk