Environmental implication of geochemical record in the Arctic Ny-?lesund glacial sediment, Svalbard (Norway)

Glacial sediments as an important end member of the global dust system, could indicate changes in global climate, aerosols sources, ocean elements, and productivity. With global warming, ice caps shrinking and glaciers retreat at high latitudes have attracted concern. To understand the response of glacier to environment and climate in modern high latitude ice-marginal environments, this paper investigated glacial sediments in the Ny-angstrom lesund region of the Arctic and clarified the response of polar environmental to global changes through geochemical characteristics of glacial sediments. The results showed that: 1) main factors affecting the elements distribution of the Ny-angstrom lesund glacial sediments were thought as soil formation, bedrock and weathering, and biological activity; 2) variations of SiO2/Al2O3 and SiO2/Al2O3 + Fe2O3, indicating low weathering of the soil. The ratio of Na2O/K2O indicating a weak chemical weathering, was negatively correlated to the CIA. With the average CIA of Ny-angstrom lesund glacial sediments for main minerals of quartz, feldspar, and muscovite as well as dolomite and calcite 50.13, which implied glacial sediments at the early stage of chemical weathering and depletion of Ca and Na; 3) the separating effect of stones and soils by stone circle formation due to thermal conductivity and frost heave makes sediments in stone circle have lower chemical weathering with only two main minerals, albite and quartz; 4) changes of carbonate content in sediments with glacier front retreating in different period implied that weathering rate of calcite averagely reached an estimate of 0.0792% wt/year in glacier A. The succession of vegetation made biological weathering become an important driving force for carbonate leaching from glacial sediments. These results and data provide scientifically significant archive for future global change studies.

Automated summary

This paper investigates glacial sediments in the Ny-Ålesund region of the Arctic and clarifies the response of polar environment to global changes through geochemical characteristics of glacial sediments. The results show that the main factors affecting the elements distribution in the sediments are soil formation, bedrock and weathering, and biological activity. The formation of stone circles leads to lower chemical weathering in the sediments. Changes in carbonate content with glacier front retreating indicate the importance of biological weathering.