Late-Quaternary Meltwater Pulses investigated through sedimentological, micropaleontological and geochemical approach: preliminary results

Climate changes and sea level rise during the next century are two of the main environmental challenges to face by the modern society. Sea level change responds to a variety of processes including ocean thermal expansion and ice sheet melting in the polar areas. The latter have been responsible for past abrupt relative sea level rises known as meltwater pulses that deeply changed the Earth’s physiography after Last Glacial Maximum by submerging the paleo coastal areas. Meltwater pulses are short-lived global acceleration in sealevel rise resulting from intense glacial melting, surge of large ice streams into oceans and intense iceberg discharge during ice sheet disintegration (Blanchon, 2011). The main concerns related to the present fast global climate changing is the possibility that sudden drastic ice loss from Greenland and/or in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would lead to a new abrupt acceleration of the relative sea level rise with consequent inundation of vast coastal areas and/or to cause an abrupt slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (i.e. Golledge et al., 2014). To better understand the dynamics and risks associated with the onset of past meltwater pulses, their impact on thermohaline ocean circulation and climate it is pivotal the geological study of the well preserved and most recent meltwater pulses events occurred during the Late Quaternary, particularly those occurred during the Last Glacial Termination. Here, we present some preliminary results of the sedimentological, micropaleontological and geochemical investigation of 4 sediment cores collected on the Western margin of the Svalbard archipelago, next to the Fram Strait in the Artic.