Rapid glacial advance reconstructed during the time of Norse occupation in Greenland geosociety
Overlooking the iceberg-covered fjord from where the margins of Akullersuup Sermia and Kangiata Nunaata Sermia were located in the 1920s . While the Norse were in Greenland, these glaciers merged and ultimately advanced another 13 km beyond this point. Credit: James Lea.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers studied the advance of Kangiata Nunaata Sermia —the largest tidewater glacier in southwest Greenland—during a period of cooling when the Norse had settlements in Greenland. Differing from glaciers that are strictly on land, tidewater glaciers extend and flow all the way to the ocean or a sea, where they can then calve and break up into icebergs.
A river that has been abandoned due to glacier retreat. The Norse had farms in this valley, and while they were there the river would have been much larger, draining meltwater and depositing sediment directly from the ice sheet. Credit: James Lea. The period when the glacier was advancing coincided with when the Norse were present in Greenland. Prior to its maximum extent during the Little Ice Age, the researchers found that KNS advanced to a location within only 5 km of a Norse farmstead.
"So we have this counterintuitive notion that climate cooling and glacier advance might have actually helped the Norse in this specific circumstance and allowed them to navigate more of the fjord more easily," said Lea.
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