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Solving a Climate Mystery

August 6, 2018

In 2013, a WHOI-led research team set sail for the Eastern Beaufort Sea. Their mission: to search for evidence of a huge, ancient, freshwater flood caused by the melting of glaciers and ice sheets. That flood, which occurred about 13,000 years ago, likely stalled ocean circulation and caused an abrupt cold snap. Working aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy, researchers gathered sediment cores from along the continental slope east of the Mackenzie River, near where it enters the Arctic Ocean. In those deep, muddy ocean sediments, which contain the shells of long-dead marine organisms, researchers found the long-sought fingerprint of the flood. (Photo Lloyd Keigwin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)