Baffin Bay Detrital Carbonate (BBDC) layers represent periods of elevated discharge of terrigenous
sediments, icebergs and freshwater originating from the North American Arctic-ice sheet complex.
Distinct from Heinrich event layers in their dolomitic composition, these sedimentary deposits are
found throughout Baffin Bay. They are considered a signature of large-scale instability of the ice sheets
discharging into the Baffin Bay, akin to the Heinrich events of the North Atlantic. However, the precise
timing of and potential forcing mechanisms for the North American Arctic-ice sheet instabilities remains
elusive. Previous work suggests that BBDC events were not in phase with Heinrich events originating from
the Hudson Strait, but this hypothesis could not be tested without rigorous chronological constraints.
By combining radiocarbon ages and relative paleointensity (RPI) dating in a central western Baffin Bay
marine sedimentary sequence, we were able to derive a new chronology for BBDC events covering a large
part of MIS3. Sedimentological and elemental data indicate the occurrence of seven distinct BBDC events
over the last 52 ka. These events occur during both glacials (stadials) and interglacials (interstadials)
and have no consistent phase relationship with Heinrich events. However, the mean duration and mean
recurrence time of BBDC events appears similar to Heinrich events. We conclude that BBDC events reflect
repeated ice sheet instability periods, with similar statistical properties but different timing compared to
the Heinrich events. This implies that episodic instability was an intrinsic property of the North American
Arctic-ice sheet complex as well, but over the studied period of MIS3, instabilities of the Arctic and the
Laurentide Ice sheets did not appear to have been linked.