Iceberg rafted debris flux on the Sabrina continental slope - for A042_KC14

Brief description

Ice-rafted debris is characterised by coarse material with typically angular grains, transported within icebergs and deposted in the ocean as the icebergs melt. This iceberg rafted debris (IBRD) flux data submitted here, was calculated by quantifying the coarse sand fraction (CSF) as a percentage of the bulk sample (weight of grains in the 250 micron to 2 mm size fraction), the dry bulk density (DBD) and the linear sedimentation rate (LSR) (following Krissek et al., 1995, Patterson et al., 2014).

A method for quantifying the IBRD flux uses the coarse sand fraction (CSF) as a percentage of the bulk sample, dry bulk density (DBD) and the linear sedimentation rate (LSR) (Krissek et al., 1995, Patterson et al., 2014):

The CSF (250μm-2mm) was acquired from samples at 10cm intervals along KC14 by wet-sieving approximately 20g of sediment per sample. Authigenic grains and microfossils were removed from the samples under a microscope. The remaining material was weighed on a microbalance and calculated as a percentage of the bulk sample. The DBD was calculated by subsampling approximately 8cm3 of sediment from the same depth intervals and dividing the dry weight of the sediment by the volume of the subsampler. The LSR was approximated by dividing the distance (cm) between the calibrated bulk carbon ages by the difference in time (kyr). The IBRD flux was then quantified using the above equation for each depth interval.

Lineage

Progress Code: completed

Notes

Purpose
This data set allows reconstruction of past ice sheet variability and the geological and chemical characteristics can be used to determine the subglacial geology beneath the ice sheet. IBRD flux is an effective measure of ice sheet variability and can be used to constrain melting events. Ice-rafted debris is characterised by coarse material with typically angular grains, transported within ice flows and icebergs and deposited on marine continental shelves and into deep sedimentary basins