Late Quaternary dinoflagellate cysts at the Eurasian continental margin, Arctic Ocean

Previous age models of sediment cores are revised, based on dinoflagellate cyst abundance peaks and species distribution, but a firm chronostratigraphy of sedimentary sequences at the eastern Laptev Sea continental margin cannot be established because of the weak signal at the sites furthest from Fram Strait. In the past 150,000 years, the influence of Atlantic (sub-) surface waters generally decreased from west to east along the Eurasian continental margin, in particular during the glacials.

Pronounced concentration maxima of cosmopolitan and temperate-subpolar dinoflagellate cysts indicate the inflow of Atlantic waters and seasonally increased production of cysts in the Holocene and Eemian. The Holocene is well-marked at the entire Eurasian continental margin but it is more difficult to assess the extent of (sub-) surface water inflow during the Eemian, which may have only reached the western Laptev Sea continental margin.