ORCID

Abstract

The past occurrence of an extreme ~1-kilometer–thick Arctic Ocean–Nordic Seas ice shelf has been inferred from submarine landscape features and geochemical records, although fundamental aspects of its characteristics, impacts, and timing remain highly debated. Here, we challenge this pan-Arctic glaciation hypothesis by investigating two sites from the Arctic-Atlantic gateway (AAG) and the Nordic Seas. Suborbital to millennial-scale surface water bioproductivity changes provide no evidence for a continuous ice shelf in the AAG and the Nordic Seas over the past ~750,000 years. Instead, proxy data and model simulations reveal the persistent presence of seasonal sea ice cover and open water phytoplankton blooms during both glacial and interglacial times. If the AAG and Nordic Seas were ever covered by an ice shelf during these times, then it must have been a partial, or at best, a very short-lived glacial phenomenon.

Publication Date

2025-07-04

Publication Title

Science advances

Volume

11

Issue

27

Acceptance Date

2025-05-30

Deposit Date

2026-01-05

Funding

This research used samples and data provided by the Integrated ODP (IODP). We sincerely thank the staff at the IODP core repository in Bremen, Germany, for all the help during various sampling parties. J.K. and M.W. are funded by the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme (grant no. 332635). J.K. and G.L. are funded by the European Union through the ERC grant # 101118519. P.S. is funded by the China Scholarship Council (grant no. 201906330073) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funded project PalMod (grant no. 01LP2317A). Acknowledgments: this research used samples and data provided by the integrated OdP (iOdP). We sincerely thank the staff at the iOdP core repository in Bremen, Germany, for all the help during various sampling parties. Funding: J.K. and M.W. are funded by the Research council of norway through its centres of excellence funding scheme (grant no. 332635). J.K. and G.l. are funded by the european Union through the eRc grant # 101118519. P.S. is funded by the china Scholarship council (grant no. 201906330073) and the German Federal Ministry of education and Research (BMBF) funded project PalMod (grant no. 01lP2317A). Author contributions: J.K.: Writing—original draft, conceptualization, writing—review and editing, methodology, resources, funding acquisition, data curation, validation, supervision, project administration, and visualization. S.t.B.: Writing—original draft, conceptualization, investigation, writing—review and editing, methodology, resources, supervision, and formal analysis. G.l.: conceptualization, investigation, writing—review and editing, methodology, resources, funding acquisition, supervision, software, project administration, and visualization. M.W.: Writing—review and editing and visualization. P.S.: Writing—original draft, investigation, writing—review and editing, data curation, validation, formal analysis, software, and visualization. h.B.: conceptualization, writing—review and editing, methodology, resources, validation, and visualization. l.S.: investigation, writing—review and editing, methodology, and formal analysis. Competing interests: the authors declare that they have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. links to data are provided below: table S2, Stable oxygen isotopes of hole 910A (source: https://figshare.com/articles/ dataset/OdP_910A_stable_oxygen_isotopes/21506571?file=38112678); table S3, hBi and sterol biomarker data of 910A (source: https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/OdP_910A_ biomarker_data/21506478?file=38112657); and table S4, XRF calcium (clr) in Md-992277 (source: https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/X-ray_fluorescence_scanning_calcium_centre-log_ratio_transformation_clr_data_in_sediment_core_Md99-2277/26968624?file=49077232)

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