ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Quaternary Science, Geomorphology and Paleoenvironment
This article is part of the Research TopicForaminifera as Tracers of Environmental Change from Present to PastView all articles
Late Glacial to Holocene environmental development near an oil producing platform in the Danish North Sea
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Near Surface Land and Marine Geology, Aarhus, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 2Department of Geo-energy and Storage, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Copenhagen, Denmark
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The Late Quaternary North Sea basin represents a highly dynamic shelf system, altered by glaciations, deglaciations and the recent Early Holocene marine transgression. However, elaborate studies on the timing of the marine transgression and the paleoenvironmental development of the Danish North Sea are lacking. Here we present a Late Glacial – Holocene paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the central North Sea using multiproxy data from three sediment cores. As a novel approach, integrated benthic faunal analyses was applied, including both bivalves and benthic foraminifera, supported by radiocarbon dating, macrofossils, lithology, sediment geochemistry (XRF core scans) and sub-bottom profiler data. By focusing on sites located near an oil producing platform, an overarching goal is to investigate the response of the benthic fauna to anthropogenic activities. The results show age offsets between radiocarbon dates performed on benthic foraminifera and bivalves, possibly driven by contamination of younger carbon, sediment reworking and changing marine reservoir ages, highlighting a dynamic depositional environment. During the Younger Dryas, the macrofossils reveal the presence of a lake situated in a tundra landscape. This was followed by marine transgression of the area at c. 10 cal. ka BP, where the benthic foraminifera point to cold water conditions. Starting from c. 8.3 cal. ka BP, increasing sedimentation rates and incursion of warmer water masses, is related to the isolation of Dogger Bank in the central North Sea and the opening of the English Channel. A transition towards colder and more unstable conditions are captured in the cores, presumably related to the 8.2 ka cold event. The cores record a depositional break between c. 8 and 2 cal. ka BP reflecting a highly dynamic depositional environment on the eastern Dogger Bank. The recent development is associated with a top layer containing benthic indices of anthropogenic impact under fully marine conditions. Our study reveals key transitions in the post-glacial evolution of the North Sea.
Keywords: benthicforaminifera, Bivalves, Dogger Bank, Holocene, Late Glacial, North Sea, Paleoceanography, Paleoenvironment
Received: 07 Oct 2025; Accepted: 16 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Hansen, Bennike, Prins, Knutz and Lauridsen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Katrine Elnegaard Hansen
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