Deglaciation history and postglacial paleo-oceanographic evolution of the eastern Svalbard RIS 6170

This project aims at investigating the changes in the flow of Atlantic and Arctic waters onto the shallow shelf of the Barents Sea during Late Weichselian and Holocene by multiproxy approach. Gravity cores will be collected from northern Storfjorden and e ast of Barentsøya area and analyzed for sedimentological and geotechnical properties, distribution of benthic foraminifera, radiocarbon ages, isotopic composition and IRD in order to reconstruct the past oceanographic and climate variations. Sub bottom pr ofiling and multibeam acoustic data will be acquired in the previously unknown areas in order to map the seabed morphology and subsurface sediment structure, and to select best coring sites. Combining the results from marine sediment cores with geophysica l data will give robust information about ice sheet dynamics, deglaciation history and oceanographic evolution of poorly known eastern Svalbard.