Matthias Forwick

UiT The Arctic University of Norway · Department of Geosciences

The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) responds rapidly to the present climate; therefore, its response to the predicted future warming is of concern. To learn more about the impact of future climatic warming on the ice sheet, decoding its behavior during past periods of warmer than present climate is important. However, due to the scarcity of marine studi...

Rock-derived or petrogenic organic carbon has traditionally been regarded as being non-bioavailable and bypassing the active carbon cycle when eroded. However, it has become apparent that this organic carbon might not be so inert, especially in fjord systems where petrogenic organic carbon influxes can be high, making its degradation another potent...

The recent acceleration of ice-sheet loss with its direct impact on sea-level rise and coastal ecosystems is of major environmental and societal concern. However, the effect of atmospheric temperature increases on long-term glacier retreat remains poorly defined due to limited historical observations and uncertainties in numerical ice-sheet models,...

Geophysical and lithological data provide crucial information for the understanding of glacial history in Arctic Svalbard. In this study, we reconstructed the glacier-induced depositional environments of Little Storfjorden and its tributary, Hambergbukta, over the last 13 ka to better understand the glacial history of southeastern Svalbard. The com...

The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) responds rapidly to the present climate, therefore, its response to the predicted future warming is of concern. To learn more about this, decoding its behavior during past periods of warmer than present climate is important. However, due to the scarcity of marine studies reconstructing ice sheet conditions on the Nort...

Palynological and sedimentological analyses were performed on the sediment core HH16‐1205‐GC retrieved from the central Isfjorden, West Spitsbergen. The sequence, which spans the last 7000 years, revealed an overall cooling trend with an important climate shift between 4.4 and 3.8 cal. ka BP, in addition to millennial‐scale oscillations. Sea‐surfac...

Despite the exclusion of the Southern Ocean from assessments of progress towards achieving the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Strategic Plan, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) has taken on the mantle of progressing efforts to achieve it. Within the CBD, Aichi Target 11 represents an agreed c...

Recent research has challenged the traditional view of rock-derived or petrogenic organic carbon (OC petro ) as non-bio-available and bypassing the active carbon cycle when eroded and buried in marine sediments ¹ and identified it as a potential source of fossil greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere ² . Due to rising global temperatures, glaci...

To better understand the past retreat patterns and chronologies of major marine-terminating outlet glaciers, the Late Weichselian and Holocene glacial history of a NE Greenland fjord system is reconstructed using new and previously published swath bathymetry and high-resolution seismic data, supplemented with multi-proxy analysis of sediment cores....

International Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 341 recovered sediments from the south Alaska continental slope that preserves a well resolved and dated inclination record over most of the past ∼43,000 years. The Site U1419 chronology (Walczak et al., 2020) is among the highest resolution in the world, constrained by 173 radiocarbon dates, p...

The reconstruction of past ice sheet extents and dynamics in polar regions is essential for understanding the global climate system and obtaining more reliable predictions of future climate change. Here, we present a multi-proxy dataset integrating the Nd isotopic compositions (εNd) of paired detrital and authigenic iron oxide fractions, grain size...

The response of glaciers and ice caps to past climate change provides important insight into how they will react to ongoing and future global warming. In Svalbard, the Holocene glacial history has been studied for many cirque and valley glaciers. However, little is known about how the larger ice caps in Svalbard responded to Late Glacial and Holoce...

The presence of a grounded Greenland Ice Sheet on the northeastern part of the Greenland continental shelf during the Last Glacial Maximum is supported by new swath bathymetry and high-resolution seismic data, supplemented with multi-proxy analyses of sediment gravity cores from Store Koldewey Trough. Subglacial till fills the trough, with an overl...

The onset and evolution of the middle to late Cenozoic “icehouse” world was influenced by the development of the global ocean circulation linking the Norwegian–Greenland Sea‐Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. The evolution of the early Neogene to early Quaternary Bjørnøyrenna Drift, located at the SW Barents Sea continental margin, shed new light...

The Younger Dryas (YD) is recognized as a cool period that began and ended abruptly during a time of general warming at the end of the last glacial. New multi-proxy data from a sediment gravity core from Storfjordrenna (western Barents Sea, 253 m water depth) reveals that the onset of the YD occurred as a single short-lived dramatic environment det...

To reconstruct the climatic and paleoceanographic variability offshore Northeast Greenland during the last ~10 ka with multidecadal resolution, sediment core PS93/025 from the outermost North-East Greenland continental shelf (80.5°N) was studied by a variety of micropaleontological, sedimentological and isotopic methods. High foraminiferal fluxes,...

The Antarctic ice sheet extent in the Weddell Sea embayment (WSE) during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; ca. 19–25 calibrated kiloyears before present, ka cal BP) and its subsequent retreat from the shelf are poorly constrained, with two conflicting scenarios being discussed. Today, the modern Brunt Ice Shelf, the last remaining ice shelf in the nor...

We synthesize the current understanding of glacier activity on Svalbard from the end of the Late Pleistocene (12,000 yrs. before present) to the end of the Little Ice Age (c. 1920 AD). Our glacier history is derived from the SVALHOLA database, the first compilation of Holocene geochronology for Svalbard and the surrounding waters, including over 1,...

Neodymium (Nd) isotopes in leached authigenic components of marine sediments have been increasingly used as a tracer of past ocean-water masses. Despite the general assumption that the Nd isotopic composition of solutes released during chemical weathering fingerprints the source rocks on continents, preferential dissolution of easily dissolvable ph...

The deglaciation history and Holocene environmental evolution of northern Wijdefjorden, Svalbard, are reconstructed using sediment cores and acoustic data (multibeam swath bathymetry and sub-bottom profiler data). Results reveal that the fjord mouth was deglaciated prior to 14.5AE0.3 cal. ka BP and deglaciation occurred in a stepwise manner. Biomar...

Mine tailings that were produced during the exploitation of the Ulveryggen siliciclastic sediment-hosted Cu deposit in northern Norway were disposed into the inner part of Repparfjorden from 1972 to 1978/1979. This study focuses on the mineralogy and geochemistry of the submarine mine tailings and underlying natural marine sediments from the inner...

Abstract. New swath bathymetry and high-resolution seismic data, supplemented with multi-proxy analyses of sediment gravity cores from Store Koldewey Trough, NE Greenland, support the presence of a shelf-break terminating Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) on the northeastern part of the Greenland Margin during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The presence o...

The 8-kilometer-long lake Femmilsjøen on the northern part of Svalbard contains an almost complete sedimentary record of the Holocene, recording the history and evolution of the >1000 km2 Åsgardfonna ice cap. Femmilsjøen is one of the largest and deepest lakes on Svalbard, and it was isolated from Wijdefjorden due to postglacial glacio-isostatic re...

Abstract. The Antarctic Ice Sheet extent in the Weddell Sea Embayment (WSE) during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; ca. 19–25 calibrated kiloyears before present, cal. ka BP) and its subsequent retreat from the shelf are poorly constrained, with two conflicting scenarios being discussed. Today, the modern Brunt Ice Shelf, the last remaining ice shelf...

Amino acid racemization (AAR) geochronology is a powerful tool for dating Quaternary marine sediments across the globe, yet its application to Arctic Ocean sediments has been limited. Anomalous rates of AAR in foraminifera from the central Arctic were reported in previously published studies, indicating that either the rate of racemization is highe...

The increasing influence of Atlantic Water (AW) in the Barents Sea, a process known as “Atlantification”, is gradually decreasing sea ice cover in the region. Ongoing global climate warming is likely to be one of its drivers, but to further understand the role of natural variability and the biogeochemical impacts of the inflow of AW into the wester...

Multi-proxy analyses of two sediment cores from Dicksonfjorden were performed to reconstruct Holocene environmental conditions in this northern branch of Isfjorden, the largest fjord system in Svalbard. Factors affecting the depositional processes include shifts in sources of sediments, ice rafting and regional glacio-isostatic rebound. Sediments w...

Kongsfjorden, a fjord in north-western Svalbard, is characterized by large environmental gradients driven by meltwater processes along the margins of tidewater glaciers and the inflow of relatively warm Atlantic Water, the main heat source for the European Arctic. These factors make Kongsfjorden a key area to investigate changes in the polar climat...

Recent research in Svalbard has provided compelling evidence for early Holocene glacier advances during a time when marine bivalves indicate that the surrounding seas were warm. The overall aim of this project is to reconstruct the Holocene climate and glacial history of northeast Spitsbergen, using a holistic approach that includes collection and...

Amino acid racemization (AAR) geochronology is a powerful tool for dating Quaternary marine sediments across the globe, yet its application to Arctic Ocean sediments has been limited. Anomalous rates of AAR in foraminifera from the central Arctic were reported in previously published studies, indicating that either the rate of racemization is highe...

The INBIS (Interfan Bear Island and Storfjorden) channel system is a rare example of a deep-sea channel on a glaciated margin. The system is located between two trough mouth fans (TMFs) on the continental slope of the NW Barents Sea: the Bear Island and the Storfjorden–Kveithola TMFs. New bathymetric data in the upper part of this channel system sh...

The Last Glacial Maximum (c. 24-19 ka BP) extent of the NE Greenland Ice Sheet, as well as the timing and dynamics of the deglaciation remains poorly constrained. New studies suggest that the ice sheet was more dynamic than previously thought, extending all the way to the shelf edge during the last glacial. One of the major ice streams draining the...

Recent research in Svalbard has provided compelling evidence for early Holocene glacier advances during a time when marine bivalves indicate that the surrounding seas were warm. The overall aim of this project is to reconstruct the Holocene climate and glacial history of northeast Spitsbergen, using a holistic approach that includes collection and...

Tailings, a residual material after separation of a valuable fraction of an ore, represents an environmental risks such as generation of acid mine drainage (AMD) and leaching of heavy metals. Traditionally, tailings have been deposited on-land, but in several countries including Norway, submarine disposal is common. The potential environmental impa...

Outreach actions are important boundary processes [1] that are designed to identify specific ways to facilitate and to enhance the interactions between science and policy, and most importantly, to influence human attitudes and associated policy decisions [2]. In June of 2018, UiT, the Arctic University of Norway, hosted the 2018 OUTREACH Expedition...

Multiple proxies in the geological record offshore NW Svalbard track shallow subseafloor diagenesis and seafloor methane seepage during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) extent and the disintegration of the Svalbard Barents Sea Ice Sheet (SBIS). Vestnesa Ridge, located at 79°N and in 1200 m water depth, is one of the northernmost known active methane...

The investigation of trough mouth fans (TMFs), important paleoclimatic archives on mid- and high-latitude continental margins, has so far mainly been based on the integration of various types of acoustic data supplemented with short sediments cores. In consequence, sedimentological and chronological data about parts of TMFs deposited prior to the L...

The INBIS (Interfan Bear Island and Storfjorden) Channel System is a rare example of deep-sea channel on a glaciated continental margin. This channel system is located between the Bear Island and Kveithola-Storfjorden Trough Mouth Fans on the SW Barents Sea continental margin. A new compilation of bathymetry data shows that a series of 40 gullies,...

The INBIS (Interfan Bear Island and Storfjorden) Channel System is a rare example of deep-sea channel on and beyond a glaciated continental margin. This channel system is located between the Bear Island and Kveithola-Storfjorden Trough Mouth Fans on the SW Barents Sea continental margin. A new compilation of bathymetry data shows that a series of 4...

The extent of the Andøya Slide on the northern Norwegian continental slope was originally estimated to about 9700 km2, with a run-out distance of about 190 km, based on GLORIA side-scan sonar imagery and echo sounder profiles (Dowdeswell et al., 1996; Laberg et al., 2000). By these estimates, the Andøya Slide is the third largest submarine landslid...

The palaeoceanographic evolution of the SW Svalbard shelf west of Hornsund over the last 14 000 years was reconstructed using benthic foraminiferal assemblages, stable oxygen and carbon isotopes, and grain-size and ice-rafted debris data. The results reveal the complexity of the feedbacks influencing the shelf environment: the inflow of Atlantic an...

A 1:10,000 scale bathymetric map as well as 1:20,000 scale backscattering and geomorphological maps of two bays Isbjørnhamna and Hansbukta in the Hornsund fjord (Spitsbergen) present the submarine relief that was primarily formed during and after the retreat of the Hansbreen tidewater glacier. Geomorphological mapping was performed using multibeam...

The Yermak Plateau is located north of Svalbard at the entrance to the Arctic Ocean, i.e. in an area highly sensitive to climate change. A multi proxy approach was carried out on Core PS92/039-2 to study glacial-interglacial environmental changes at the northern Barents Sea margin during the last 160 ka. The main emphasis was on the reconstruction...

Fertilization of the ocean by eolian dust and icebergs is an effective mechanism to enhance primary productivity. In particular, high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll (HNLC) areas where phytoplankton growth is critically iron-limited, such as the subarctic Pacific Ocean and the Southern Ocean, are proposed to respond to increases in bioavailable Fe supply...

The SSF funded project “Sediment flux from source to sink – the Coastal Link” is an international, multi-disciplinary research project aiming at understanding and quantifying sediment distribution patterns in Svalbard fjords. The current project (2016-2017) focuses on Kongsfjorden and Dicksonfjorden as representatives for glacially and non-glaciall...

The Arctic areas, like Svalbard, are particularly sensitive to global climate changes as proved by modern monitoring data and the past records. One of the most spectacular changes is the rapid retreat of tidewater glaciers during the post-Little Ice Age period (after ~1900) observed in many subpolar fjords in Svalbard. Due to the retreat, new bays...

The influence of the Coriolis force on the Hornsund fjord environment (southern Spitsbergen) was investigated in the marine sedimentary record from the last century. Due to the influence of the rotational effects, Atlantic and Arctic Water enter the fjord along the southern shore and exit along the northern shore. Thus, the sedimentary record from...

Organic-walled dinoflagellate cysts and acritarchs are a vital tool for reconstructing past environmental change, in particular in the Neogene of the high northern latitudes where marine deposits are virtually barren of traditionally used calcareous microfossils. Yet only little is known about the paleoenvironmental value of fossil assemblages that...

The extent and dynamics of the north-eastern sector of the Greenland ice sheet (GIS) during the last glacial still remain very uncertain, and maximum ice extents to inner-shelf, mid-shelf and outer-shelf positions have been suggested. Here we argue that the margin of the GIS reached the shelf break along part of its NE sector during the last glacia...

Slope failures are widespread along the Norwegian-Svalbard passive continental margin. Here, we describe the morphology and sedimentology of a slide area and discuss the potential trigger mechanisms that have led to multiple slope failure events along the NW-Svalbard margin, in close proximity to the tectonically active Spitsbergen Fracture Zone. B...

The INBIS Channel System is an inter-fan deep-marine channel system located on the lower reaches of the continental slope in the Norwegian-Greenland Sea, West of Bjørnøya, Barents Sea. Upslope of the INBIS Channel System a complex series of gullies and tributary canyons incise the upper parts of the continental slope; these are inferred to have ori...

We investigate the state of sedimentological environment and contaminant status of Repparfjorden (N Norway) impacted by submarine disposal of mine tailings during the 1970s using sedimentological and geochemical properties of seventeen sediment cores. The impact of tailings disposal is mainly restricted to the inner fjord where the discharge occurr...

Geomorphological evidence suggests that ice streams undergo frequent dynamic changes towards the end of their life cycles, but the associated sedimentary characteristics and processes remain poorly understood. Here, we present new sedimentological data from a Late Weichselian marine-based ice stream in upper Bjørnøyrenna, northern Barents Sea, whic...

In order to establish a baseline for proxy-based reconstructions for the Young Sound–Tyrolerfjord system (Northeast Greenland), we analysed the spatial distribution of primary production and sea ice proxies in surface sediments from the fjord, against monitoring data from the Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring Programme. Clear spatial gradients in orga...

The production of high-salinity brines during sea-ice freezing in circum-arctic coastal polynyas is thought to be part of northern deep water formation as it supplies additional dense waters to the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation system. To better predict the effect of possible future summer ice-free conditions in the Arctic Ocean on gl...