The origin and age of driftwood on Jan Mayen

Analysis of the wood anatomy of 481 driftwood specimens from Jan Mayen show s that Larix spp. constitute approximately 70% of the trees, while sawn log s are dominated by Pinus spp. by approximately 69%. A total of 356 driftwoo d samples from Jan Mayen and a small number of samples from Bjornoya in the Barents Sea and the Troynoy Island in the Kara Sea were analysed by dendro chronological methods. A driftwood Pinus chronology was dated absolutely us ing chronologies from living trees of Pinus sylvestris in the lower proximi ty of the Angara River, a tributary of the Yenisey in Siberia. About 27% of the pine logs measured on Jan Mayen were found to originate in the same re gion, with end years concentrated in the 1940s and 1950s. A similar source was also found for Pinus driftwood logs on Bjornoya and Troynoy. The result s confirm and further delimit the source areas of the Yenisey driftwood est ablished earlier from driftwood logs on Svalbard and Iceland. A subordinate source of both Pinus and Picea logs on Jan Mayen is northwest Russia, from the Kola Peninsula to the Pechora River. The Transpolar Drift Stream is be lieved to be the main distributor of driftwood from Siberian and northwest Russian sources to Jan Mayen, via the East Greenland Current. Dendrochronol ogical dating reveals a strong, continuous input of ice-rafted driftwood fr om the Kara Sea. Radiocarbon datings from Jan Mayen show surface deposits o f driftwood to be less than 500 years old, due mainly to extensive degradat ion of older wood and little or no land uplift.