Arctic Ocean ice cover; Geologic history and climatic significance

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Abstract
The Arctic Ocean is unique among the world’s oceans because of its perennial ice cover. The geologic and climatologic factors that contributed to development of the Arctic Ocean ice cover are understood in a general way, even though the precise mechanism and time during the Cenozoic that the first ice cover formed are not known. Data concerning climatological processes that encouraged development of an Arctic Ocean ice cover have developed from the general understanding of the paleogeographic sequence of events since the last major time of ice-free conditions during the Cretaceous and early Cenozoic. The lack of facts concerning the precise time, and to some extent the mechanism, of ice cover origin is largely the result of an inadequate data base in the Arctic Ocean. For example, no long sediment core with middle Cenozoic sediment that may represent the time of the initial ice-cover development has been collected. Unfortunately, no research ship with capability for recovery of long sediment cores has been designed for work in the area of year-round Arctic pack ice. Therefore, the only sediment record for the central Arctic Ocean is that recovered from drifting ice stations such as the U.S. T-3 program and the Canadian LOREX and CESAR projects. Offshore drilling on the continental slope of Alaska and Canada has penetrated a more complete Cenozoic section. The sediment is largely non marine and, in the shallow Beaufort Sea area, consists of thick deltaic sediment. Detailed paleoclimato- logic study of this sediment has not been accomplished, but

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