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Were the North Atlantic Heinrich events triggered by the behavior of the European ice sheets?

¹ Unité Mixte de Recherche 5805 Environnement et Paléoenvironnement Océaniques, Université Bordeaux I, Avenue des Facultés, 33405 Talence, France
² Laboratoire des Sciences du climat et de l'Environnement, Avenue de la Terrasse, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
³ Institut Français de Recherche sur la Mer, Centre de Brest, BP 70, 29280 Plouzané Cedex, France

Theories explaining the origin and distribution of Heinrich layers—abrupt, massive discharges of ice-rafted detritus—generally attribute these layers to the Laurentide ice sheet. However, doubt has been cast by the discovery that sediments also originated from European ice sheets. Here we present isotopic (Sr-Nd) fingerprints of Heinrich layers obtained in cores from the European margin. They reveal that for most of the Heinrich layers, the icebergs were calved first from the European ice sheets, predating the Laurentide surges. Accelerator mass spectrometry ¹⁴C ages reveal that the oceanic Heinrich events were synchronous with their dust equivalents in the Greenland ice cores, implying a direct ocean-atmosphere link. The typical Laurentide surge seems to have occurred over a short time span, after about 1.5 k.y. of iceberg release from the European ice sheets. This suggests that the Laurentide ice sheet responded to a stimulus created by events in the European sector.

Key Words: Atlantic Ocean • paleoclimatology • Heinrich events • ice-rafted detritus • Sr-Nd isotopes

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