Fjord systems and archives: a review

Fjords are glacially over-deepened semi-enclosed marine basins, typically with entrance sills separating their deep waters
from the adjacent coastal waters which restrict water circulation and thus oxygen renewal. The location of fjords is principally
controlled by the occurrence of ice sheets, either modern or ancestral. Fjords are therefore geomorphological features that
represent the transition from the terrestrial to the marine environment and, as such, have the potential to preserve evidence
of environmental change. Typically, most fjords have been glaciated a number of times and some high-latitude fjords still
possess a resident glacier. In most cases, glacial erosion through successive glacial/interglacial cycles has ensured the
removal of sediment sequences within the fjord. Hence the stratigraphic record in fjords largely preserves a glacial-deglacial
cycle of deposition over the last 18 ka or so. Sheltered water and high sedimentation rates have the potential to make fjords
ideal depositional environments for preserving continuous records of climate and environmental change with high temporal resolution.
In addition to acting as high-resolution environmental archives, fjords can also be thought of as mini-ocean sedimentary basin
laboratories. Fjords remain an understudied and often neglected sedimentary realm. With predictions of warming climates, changing
ocean circulation and rising sea levels, this volume is a timely look at these environmentally sensitive coastlines.

峡湾乃冰川过度侵蚀而成的半封闭海洋盆地，通常以入口门槛将深邃的海水与邻近的沿海水域分隔开来，这限制了水体循环，从而影响氧气的更新。峡湾的位置主要由冰盖的存在所决定，无论是现代的还是古代的。因此，峡湾作为一种地质形态，代表了从陆地环境向海洋环境的过渡，并因此具有保存环境变化证据的潜力。通常，大多数峡湾经历了多次冰川作用，而一些高纬度的峡湾仍保留有永久冰川。在大多数情况下，冰川通过连续的冰川/间冰期循环所进行的侵蚀，确保了峡湾内部沉积序列的去除。因此，峡湾的地层记录主要保存了大约过去18千年的冰川-退冰沉积周期。避风的水域和高沉积速率使得峡湾成为保存连续气候和环境变化记录的理想沉积环境，且时间分辨率较高。此外，作为高分辨率的环境档案，峡湾还可以被视为微型海洋沉积盆地实验室。峡湾仍是一个未被充分研究和往往被忽视的沉积领域。随着气候变暖、海洋环流变化和海平面上升的预测，本卷对这些环境敏感的海岸线进行了及时的研究。