Provenance of coarse ice-rafted detritus near the SE Greenland margin

The pravenance of coarse-grained ice-rafted detritus has been studied, base d on material collected from the SE Greenland margin. The sediment was samp led by a 1.5 m(3) video-grab from 1256 m water depth. The fraction > 1 cm w as macroscopically investigated and a thin-section analysis was made. The r esults clearly show that East Greenland north of the Denmark Strait is the source region of the material sampled. The main provenance is from areas ad joining Kangerdlugssuaq Fjord, Blosseville Kyst, Scoresby Sund, Kong Oskar Fjord, and Kejser Franz Joseph Fjord. It can thus be demonstrated that sign ificant ice-stream activity and iceberg calving occurred there. Present-day iceberg production is mainly concentrated to the Scoresby Sund, but the ot her areas apparently represent locations of larger ice-stream activity duri ng periods prior to the Holocene. More generally, it can be concluded that southerly surface-water now simila r to the present East Greenland Current must also have occurred prior to th e Holocene. Although either North America (Canada) or Scandinavia - or both - are generally referred to as important regions for the provenance of ice -rafted detritus, we conclude that (East) Greenland may have been an import ant source for (late) glacial North Atlantic ice-rafted detritus production as well.