Reconstruction of the glacial history of the shelf north of the Hinlopen Strait, Svalbard

High-resolution geophysical evidence on the seafloor morphology and acoustic stratigraphy of the shelf north of the Hinlopen Strait (northern Svalbard margin) between 800 27.60N and 810 18.44N and 130 55.76E and 190 20.72E, is presented in this thesis. The geophysical data used are derived from multi-beam bathymetry and sub-bottom acoustic profiling acquired during the RV Maria S. Merian MSM31 cruise. The bathymetric data was further examined to reduce systematic errors and afterwards grid was calculated. The hillshade grid tool was applied in order to enhance the visualization of the seafloor and helped to digitize the submarine features manually. Three sub-marine features were detected and digitized. The most dominant feature is the scours that cover the study area in water depths of 109 m...306 m and are mostly randomly oriented. All the scours were interpreted as iceberg plough-marks. The scours in the western part of the study area are suggested to have formed during the deglaciation of the Svalbard-Barents ice sheet and Hinlopen trough at the end of the Late Weichselian. The scours detected in the eastern study area were associated to iceberg calving from the Hinlopen trough ice-stream during the late Weichselian. The second detected feature is referred to as lineations and was detected at the northeastern part of the study area in water depths of 164 m...745m.The lineations are parallel with a SSW-NNE main orientation and were interpreted as marks by grounded ice-sheet from Svalbard formed during and after the Saalian. Sub-marine hills interpreted as blocks of debris that flowed from the slope into the Sophia basin before the Yermak/Hinlopen Slide (MIS 3). The same features were revealed in the PARASOUND data and two sediment facies were determined. Sediment ‘Facies 1’ represents sediment disturbed by iceberg ploughing, and ‘Facies 2’ implies undisturbed seafloor and semi-pelagic sediments. The sub-glacial detected features are further used to make an approach reconstructing the glacial history of the shelf north of the Hinlopen Strait