CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Fillon, R.H.
Date : 1976
Title : Hamilton bank, Labrador shelf: post-glacial sediment dynamics and paleo-oceanography
Publication : Marine Geology
Issue : 20(1):
Page(s) : 7-25
Abstract
Sandy glacial sediments on Hamilton Bank have been reworked during postglacial times by the effect of storm waves and the Labrador Current. Gravel to cobble lags are found along the periphery of the bank. A layer of medium to fine sand and silt less than 1 m thick cloaks the bank surface. Toward the center, modal grain size becomes progressively finer reaching a minimum of 5 . Silt and clay have accumulated in peripheral basins. Faunal changes in basin sediments and partial covering of the lag deposits by sand imply that the Labrador Current which today flows southward between Hamilton Bank and the coast was, for a period after deglaciation, deflected to the east around Hamilton Bank and down the seaward edge of the Grand Banks. Thus warm water was able to penetrate northward along the continental shelves of the United States and Canada to southern Newfoundland. Warmer coastal waters south of Newfoundland appear to have substantially amplified the effect of the Holocene thermal maximum in coastal areas. Isostatic and eustatic considerations suggest that Hamilton Bank was not emergent in postglacial times and that the depth of water over the bank has been increasing, probably for the last 6,000 years. Deepening water over the inner shelf and a cooling trend in Arctic surface waters beginning 3,500 years ago are probably responsible for the present position and intensity of the Labrador Current.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology