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Abstract
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Heinrich layers (H-layers) are distinct, decimetre to centimetre thick layers of ice-rafted debris (IRD) that were deposited in the North Atlantic during the Late and middle Pleistocene. H-layers (H-layers) are characterized by high detrital carbonate and low foraminifera contents. In the Labrador Sea, H-layers reach metre thickness in some proximal core sites near the iceberg source of the Hudson Strait ice stream and show five distinct depositional facies involving sediment lofting and low-density turbidity currents as sediment delivery processes besides ice rafting. Thick massive ice-rafted layers (type I H-layers) occur in the most proximal parts of H-layer 3 and older H-layers.Within 300 kmdistance fromthe assumedHudson Strait ice streamterminus, H-layers somewhatmore distal than type IH-layers consist predominantly of stacked thin layers of gradedmuds containing IRD (type II H-layers). The graded muds that are spiked with IRD resulted from the deposition of fine-grained lofted sediment that collected dropstones and grains under the iceberg route. At greater distance fromtheHudson Strait outlet on the slope and rise south of the strait, H-layers on the levees of tributary canyons to the Northwest Atlantic Mid-Ocean Channel (NAMOC) consist of alternations of thin mud turbidites with intercalated laminae of IRD (type III H-layers). On the levees of NAMOC, type IV H-layers consist of layers of IRD alternating with fewer fine-grained spill-over turbidites, because the spill-over frequency from the deep channel was less than that from the less deep canyons on the slope. Type V is made up of bioturbated hemipelagic muds with coarser IRD and occurs in regions between canyons not reached by spill-over turbidity currents and in distal regions of the open ocean or on seamounts. Transport of significant portions of the sediment in H-layers by suspended sediment columns lofted from sand-carrying fresh-water turbidity currents (type II) and by low-density turbidity currents
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