Onset of strong Iceland-Scotland overflow water 3.6 million years ago
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-1-2025
Journal / Book Title
Nature Communications
Abstract
North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW), the return flow component of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), is a major inter-hemispheric ocean water mass with strong climate effects but the evolution of its source components on million-year timescales is poorly known. Today, two major NADW components that flow southward over volcanic ridges to the east and west of Iceland are associated with distinct contourite drift systems that are forming off the coast of Greenland and on the eastern flank of the Reykjanes (mid-Atlantic) Ridge. Here we provide direct records of the early history of this drift sedimentation based on cores collected during International Ocean Discovery Programme (IODP) Expeditions 395C and 395. We find rapid acceleration of drift deposition linked to the eastern component of NADW, known as Iceland–Scotland Overflow Water at 3.6 million years ago (Ma). In contrast, the Denmark Strait Overflow Water feeding the western Eirik Drift has been persistent since the Late Miocene. These observations constrain the long-term evolution of the two NADW components, revealing their contrasting independent histories and allowing their links with climatic events such as Northern Hemisphere cooling at 3.6 Ma, to be assessed.
DOI
10.1038/s41467-025-59265-5
Journal ISSN / Book ISBN
105004672185 (Scopus)
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Sinnesael, Matthias; Karatsolis, Boris Theofanis; Pearson, Paul N.; Briais, Anne; Hemming, Sidney R.; LeVay, Leah J.; Dunkley Jones, Tom; Cui, Ying; Di Chiara, Anita; Dodd, Justin P.; Dwyer, Deepa; Eason, Deborah E.; Friedman, Sarah A.; Hanson, Emma; Hochmuth, Katharina; Ibrahim, Halima E.; Jasper, Claire E.; Lee-Takeda, Saran; LeBlanc, Danielle E.; Lindsay, Melody R.; McNamara, David D.; Modestou, Sevasti E.; Morris, Margaret A.; Murton, Bramley J.; OConnell, Suzanne; Pasquet, Gabriel; Qian, Sheng Ping; Rosenthal, Yair; Satolli, Sara; Suzuki, Takuma; Thulasi, Thena; and Wade, Bridget S., "Onset of strong Iceland-Scotland overflow water 3.6 million years ago" (2025). Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 731.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/earth-environ-studies-facpubs/731
Published Citation
Sinnesael, M., Karatsolis, B. T., Pearson, P. N., Briais, A., Hemming, S. R., LeVay, L. J., ... & Parnell-Turner, R. E. (2025). Onset of strong Iceland-Scotland overflow water 3.6 million years ago. Nature communications, 16(1), 4323.
Comments
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