Marine evidence for the last glacial advance across eastern Hudson Strait,eastern Canadian Arctic

Data from accelerator mass spectrometer radiocarbon dated sediment cores an d Huntec high-resolution seismic profiles were used to investigate the age and origin of the sediments in the Eastern Basin of Hudson Strait. The data indicate that the ice-contact and glacial-marine sediments on the basin fl anks and much of the upper sequence in the deep floor of the basin were pro duced during the Noble Inlet advance (8.9 to 8.4 ka), the last northward ex pansion of the Labrador Dome on to southeastern Baffin Island. On the north ern flank of Eastern Basin one sequence of ice-contact sediments and glacia l-marine deposits overlies bedrock; the glacial-marine sediments are transi tional upslope to ice-contact sediments, and form at least two successive i ce-sheet grounding zones. The earliest abundance peaks of benthic Foraminin fera in glacial-marine sediments date ca. 8.6 and 8.4 ka, and correlate to sediments near the base of the 58-m-thick glacial-marine section in the dee pest part of Eastern Basin. This correlation suggests that Noble inlet ice was grounded throughout Eastern Basin during the early part of its advance. In later stages the thinning ice produced grounding zones on the basin fla nks while glacial-marine sediments were deposited in the deep basin. (C) 19 98 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.