Bond event

Bond event, any of nine ice-rafting events carrying coarse-grained rocky debris from Greenland and Iceland to the North Atlantic Ocean during the Holocene Epoch (beginning some 11,700 years ago and extending to the present day).

Bond events are known from the analysis of deep-sea sediment cores collected from the North Atlantic Ocean (see also core sampling). They are associated with cyclic temperature fluctuations punctuated by abrupt episodes of climate warming, which culminate in massive releases of icebergs from glaciers and continental ice sheets. Bond events (and their associated temperature cycles) appear to be similar to so-called Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles, or D-O cycles, which have been identified in ice cores from glacial periods dating back 45,000 years.

Icebergs calving from landed glaciers often contain rocks and other debris, which are eventually deposited on the ocean floor as the icebergs drift to warmer waters and melt. Episodes of Holocene ice rafting have been identified in the deep-sea sediment cores by increases in grain size and concentrations of hematite-stained quartz and feldspar. These minerals were derived from red beds in Greenland and concentrations of fresh volcanic glass from Iceland. The increase in coarse particles appears to be caused by increased ice rafting. The changes in grain composition, however, are thought to result from the rafting of ice from different source areas, a phenomenon brought about by changes in North Atlantic Ocean circulation. The ice-rafting episodes associated with Bond events appear to be Holocene expressions of a pervasive 1,500-year cycle of global climate change.

Changes in the amount of ice-rafted debris found in sediment cores along the ocean floor in the North Atlantic suggest that, during the Holocene, cool ice-bearing waters from north of Iceland have periodically extended as far south as the latitude of Great Britain. These phenomena have been named for American geologist Gerard Bond. Bond and others have argued that the periodic cooling of surface waters and subsequent ice-rafting events have been caused by cyclic changes in the circulation of North Atlantic waters, which occur on a cycle of 1,470 500 years. Eight primary Bond events have been identified, primarily from variations in ice-rafted debris in North Atlantic cores. Their approximate commencement times have been dated at 1,400, 2,800, 4,200, 5,900, 8,100, 9,400, 10,300, and 11,100 years ago. A ninth Bond event, which is a matter of some debate among paleoclimatologists, is thought to have occurred about 1500 ce, during the Little Ice Age.