Late Cenozoic sedimentary systems offshore West Greenland providing new insights to ice-ocean interactions during periods of enhanced climate warming

The need for constraining future climate scenarios requires a better understanding of how the cryosphere responded to ocean-climate conditions that were warmer than present. The Greenland shelf margins store thick sedimentary packages that may offer detailed information pertaining to ice-ocean-climate dynamics and Arctic ecosystems. A wealth of seismic data acquired since the early nineties has generated numerous subsurface maps and geomorphic studies of expanded sedimentary archives located proximal to the Greenland Ice Sheet. While paleoclimate reconstructions of ice sheet and ocean dynamics have largely been based on North Atlantic deep-water records, the Greenland continental margin will be the focus of forthcoming International Ocean Discovery Program missions such as Exp. 400, NW Greenland margin. The aim of this presentation is to provide an update of the late Cenozoic marine successions that form key targets for understanding cryospheric behavior during warm climate periods, in particular the Miocene-Pliocene interval characterized by contourite drifts and hemipelagic sequences. The significance for pushing knowledge frontiers on Northern Hemisphere climate evolution and Earth System modelling will be discussed.