Thomas R. Lakeman

Holocene History of Arctic Ice Shelves

The modern Ellesmere ice shelves constitute the oldest landfast sea ice in the Northern Hemisphere, originally described by late nineteenth century sledging expeditions. At that time, the ‘Ellesmere Ice Shelf’ formed a contiguous, coastal apron that extended hundreds of kilometres in length and covered up to 9000 km2. By the mid-twentieth century the Ellesmere Ice Shelf was reduced to several large remnants and half its original area. Early efforts to document the age of ice shelf inception used conventional radiocarbon dating of internal, aeolian layers and marine organisms incorporated by basal accretion, all providing problematic results. The most widely cited age (3000 14C yr before present (BP)) was provided by a radiocarbon date on driftwood stranded behind the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf.