Biogeography in the Sub-Arctic. Группа авторов
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Название: Biogeography in the Sub-Arctic

Автор: Группа авторов

Издательство: John Wiley & Sons Limited

Жанр: География

Серия:

isbn: 9781118561355

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СКАЧАТЬ href="#ulink_b74e7e75-8a7e-5c28-8225-72ee21a5da0d">Figure 12 Dark ash layers contrasting with white diatomite sediments on the island of Fur, Limfjord, Jutland. Originally deposited sub‐horizontally, the sequence was later severely deformed by Pleistocene ice sheets.

      Source: Photo by B.G.J. Upton.

      A prolonged period of global warming commencing at 55 Ma (Palaeocene–Eocene thermal maximum) is attributed to the effects of the proto‐Iceland plume. This was ‘a period of climatic turmoil’ that lasted for over 100,000 years during which ocean temperatures increased by 3–10 °C (Nisbet et al. 2009). On land, this period saw the extinction of a large number of mammalian groups that had been dominant in the Palaeocene and the appearance of three modern mammalian orders. These evolutionary changes have been linked to diversification and dispersal in response to rapid environmental changes at this time (Hallam 2004). In the oceans the principal casualties were the benthic foraminifera, the most abundant deep‐water organisms. At ~55 Ma about half of all benthic Foraminifera species were wiped out (a greater loss than had occurred at the Cretaceous–Palaeocene boundary (best known for the extinction of the dinosaurs). This calamity for the foraminiferans has been ascribed to ocean warming and acidification as a result of rising CO2 content (Hallam 2004; Lovell 2010).

      Methane hydrates (clathrates) are solids resembling ice, composed of water + gas and stable at high pressures and low temperatures that occur beneath the sea floor. Destabilization of these compounds yields free methane, which is a more efficacious ‘greenhouse gas’ for absorption of solar heat than CO2 (Svenson et al. 2004). There are numerous hypotheses regarding the actual process by which the ‘greenhouse’ gases were emitted. It has been suggested that arrival of the mantle plume resulted in short‐term sea‐floor uplift that caused both a sea‐temperature rise, pressure reduction and consequent dissociation of the hydrates (MacLennan and Jones 2006). Yet another hypothesis is that a great emission of methane came from an enclosed marine basin in which enormous amounts of methane briefly existed. One such basin, specifically suggested, between Norway and Greenland (called ‘the Kilda Basin) and the triggering of gas was related to a rise of the Iceland Plume (Nisbet et al. 2009).

Photo depicts lava fountaining along a fissure northern Iceland 1980, during an episode of extension and rift opening.

      Source: Photo by Halldór Ólafsson.

      Where uplift raises continental margins above sea‐level, their consequent sub‐aerial erosion causes relatively coarse‐grained sediments to be deposited on adjacent sub‐marine shelves. These pulse‐drive uplifts can have significant commercial consequences: for example, the Forties oil‐field is dependent on sandy reservoir rocks that resulted from continental lithosphere uplift at ~55 Ma, marking the arrival of a major thermal input (Lovell 2010). Furthermore, the changes in the elevation of the Greenland–Faeroes–Iceland and Scotland ridge over millions of years have controlled the deep‐water overflow of the Denmark Straits (Wright and Miller 1996; Nisbet et al. 2009; Poore et al. 2009, 2011).

      In the aftermath of the ocean opening there was notable uplift of the adjacent ‘trailing’ continental margins. The uplift is noteworthy in, for example, western Scotland and Norway, but is most extreme in eastern Greenland where ‘plateau lavas’ erupted close to sea‐level (and which were preceded by marine Mesozoic strata) have been raised, while remaining essentially horizontal. Among the uplifted rocks are those of Gunnbjørns Fjeld, which at 3693 m is the highest mountain in the Arctic. How much strata have been eroded from above it is unknown.

      The pre‐opening loading, by up to 7 km of basaltic lavas, would be expected to have depressed rather than elevated surfaces. However, the uplift is inferred to be the consequence of intrusion of igneous rocks deep in the crust that more than compensate for the surface loading (Larsen et al. 1998). Despite the huge volume of erupted lavas a much larger volume of magma crystallized deep in the crust as ‘underplating’. The east coast of Greenland presents an elongate area of uplift centred on that part (Kangerdlugssuaq) where the plume axis is deduced to have passed from continent to ocean (Lawver and Müller 1994).

      The tilting of the topography in northern Britain from west to east is also attributed to the process of magmatic underplating (Brodie and White 1994). Consequently, the Iceland plume has been instrumental in shaping the landscapes on either side of the ocean (Fitton and Larsen 2001).

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