Glacimarine lithofacies, provenance and depositional processes on a West Greenland trough‐mouth fan

Abstract

Along the West Greenland continental margin adjoining Baffin Bay, bathymetric data show a series of large submarine fans located at the mouths of cross‐shelf troughs. One of these fans, termed here ‘Uummannaq Fan’, is a trough‐mouth fan built largely by debris delivered from a fast‐flowing outlet of the Greenland Ice Sheet during past glacial maxima. Cores from this fan provide the first information on glacimarine sedimentary facies within a major West Greenland trough‐mouth fan and on the nature of Late Weichselian–Holocene glacigenic sediment delivery to this region of the Baffin Bay margin. Glacigenic debris flows deposited on the upper slope and extending to at least 1800 m water depth in front of the trough‐mouth are related to the remobilization of subglacial debris that was delivered onto the upper slope at times when an ice stream was positioned at the shelf edge. In contrast, sedimentary facies from the northern sector of the fan are characterized by hemipelagic and ice‐rafted sediments and turbidites; glacigenic debris flows are notably absent in cores from this region. Quantitative X‐ray diffraction studies of the

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