Site 986 was drilled to 965 meters below seafloor (mbsf) on the western Svalbard margin to record the onset of glaciations and to date and document the glacial evolution in the Svalbard-Barents Sea region during the Pliocene-Pleistocene. In this paper, results of sedimentological analyses are discussed in light of seismic stratigraphy and new age determinations. The latter were difficult to obtain in the glacial deposits, and datums are sparse. Through combined paleomagnetic data, biostratigraphy, and Sr isotopes, however, an overall chronology for the main evolutionary steps is suggested. The cored sequence at Site 986 is younger than 2.6 Ma, and the lower 60 m of the section contains no evidence of a major glacial influence. An initial glaciation is interpreted to have occurred at ~2.3 Ma, resulting in increased sand deposition from debris flows at Site 986 and forming a prominent seismic reflector, R7. However, glaciers probably did not reach the shelf break until ~1.6-1.7 Ma (Reflector R6), after which the depositional environment was dominated by diamictic debris flows. A gradual change in source area from the Barents Sea to Svalbard is recorded primarily by changes in carbonate and smectite content, ~355 mbsf (Reflector R5), at an interpolated age of 1.4-1.5 Ma. During the last ~1 m.y., Site 986 has undergone more distal deposition as the main depocenters have shifted laterally. This has resulted in less frequent debris flows and more turbidites and hemipelagic deposits, with a slight fining upward of the cored sediments.

Sediment depth is given in mbsf. See also doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.805084 for a different Sr age determination of ODP Hole 162-986D.

Supplement to: Forsberg, Carl Fredrik; Solheim, Anders; Elverhoi, Anders; Jansen, Eystein; Channell, James E T; Andersen, Espen Sletten (1999): The depositional environment of the western Svalbard margin during the late Pliocene and the Pleistocene: sedimentary facies changes at Site 986. In: Raymo, ME; Jansen, E; Blum, P; Herbert, TD (eds.) Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program, Scientific Results, College Station, TX (Ocean Drilling Program), 162, 1-14