A GIS Database of Submarine Glacial Landforms and Sediments on Arctic Continental Shelves

A digital database for glacial landforms and sediments formed in the Arctic during and since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) was created in order to facilitate and underpin new research on palaeo-ice sheets and tidewater glacier dynamics. The database is in geographic information system (GIS) format and is available for web download. It documents evidence of previous glacial activity as visible on the contemporary seafloor of fjords and continental shelves around all of Svalbard, Greenland, Alaska, and northern Russia, as well as north of 66°30' N in Canada and Norway. Extensive literature research was conducted to create the database, compiling a total of nearly 60,000 individual submarine landforms, more than 1,000 sediment cores, and around 230 radiocarbon dates. Glacial landforms included in the database are cross-shelf troughs, trough-mouth fans, grounding-zone wedges, overridden moraines, (mega-scale) glacial lineations, drumlins, crag-and-tails, medial moraines, terminal moraines, debris-flow lobes (including glacier-contact fans), recessional moraines, De Geer moraines, crevasse-fill ridges, eskers, hill-hole pairs, crescentic scours, and submarine channels. They were digitised as points, lines, and polygons alongside a list of their individual characteristics. Sediment core locations are attributed with a description of the sampled lithofacies and sedimentation rates where available. In an effort to make the sedimentological evidence as consistent as possible, the sedimentary record has been standardised according to a predefined nomenclature and classified into one of eight lithofacies groups commonly observed in Arctic glacimarine settings. Radiocarbon dates from the marine realm were included when thought to be relevant for constraining the timing of large-scale palaeo-ice dynamics. Outlines of bathymetric datasets, which have been used for glacial geomorphological mapping were also included, to give an overview of previously investigated research areas. The database will aid researchers in the reconstruction of LGM and Holocene ice dynamics and in the interpretation of Arctic glacial landform-sediment assemblages. Moreover, as well as providing a comprehensive bibliography on Arctic glacial geomorphological and sedimentological research, it is intended to serve as a basis for future modelling of Arctic glacier and ice sheet dynamics.