Environmental changes in the Central Deep of the Barents Sea during the late glacial and the Holocene

Complex analysis of downcore variations in lithology and composition of microfossils such as pollen, spores, aquatic palynomorphs, benthic and planktonic foraminifera, and ostracods, in two sediment cores and comparison of the obtained results with published data on the structure of the Barents Sea shelf sediment sequence revealed three sediment units corresponding to the climatically determined stages in the evolution of postglacial sedimentation environments in the Central Deep of the Barents Sea. Spores, pollen and aquatic palynomorphs from this region were studied for the first time. The obtained data indicate a significant environmental transformation during the deglaciation period, i. e. from a glacier-proximal freshened marine basin with almost perennial sea-ice cover to a glacier-distal highly ice-covered basin, which was later replaced by a Holocene hemipelagic marine basin. The transition to marine type of sedimentation and the stabilization of normal marine environments are well reconstructed from fine-grained sediment composition, decrease in iceand iceberg-rafted debris, lower proportion of redeposited spores and pollen, as well as from the appearance of dinoflagellate cysts, significant increase of the total abundance of microfauna and higher concentrations of pollen and spores. The most favorable conditions of the Middle Holocene are characterized by the growing taxonomic diversity of benthic foraminifera, appearance of subpolar planktonic foraminifera, and maximum of birch pollen in pollen spectra, which together indicate the increasing influence of Atlantic waters and wider distribution of birch formations on land.

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