RV Heincke HE 463 Expedition

In the course of the environmental reorganization of the North Sea shelf since the Last Glacial Maximum, the Elbe-Palaeovalley (EPV) changed its hydrogeological character from a glacial meltwater drainage system along the Scandinavian ice sheet (SIS) margin into a sea inlet with various major and regional tributaries, before the EPV finally got drowned in the modern North Sea during the post-glacial transgression. One target of this proposal is to understand the hydrogeological role and evolution of a recently discovered tributary system of the EPV, which drained the exposed Dogger Bank area. Based on findings from RV Heincke cruise HE405 (2013) focusing on the infill history of the southern EPV in the course of the transgression, a second target is to investigate the partially speculative pathway of the northern EPV and the underlying morphology. A third target is to understand the infill pattern related to large scale circulation and palaeo-topographic constrains. For all targets we will obtain data with seismic surveys and vibrocoring in Danish, Norwegian, German and Dutch waters. The results will provide new insights in the EPV as a regional dewatering system since the late Weichselian and increase our understanding about the role of tributary systems in forming the Mesolithic Doggerland landscape in the present-day North Sea.