Heinrich Event

Heinrich event, any of a series of at least six large discharges of icebergs that carried coarse-grained rocky debris, apparently from North American ice sheets, into the North Atlantic Ocean at latitudes between 40° and 55° N, where the debris was later deposited on the ocean floor as the icebergs melted. Heinrich events are thought to be associated with sudden climate warming events that occurred between approximately 60,000 and 16,800 years ago during the most recent ice age of the Pleistocene Epoch (about 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago). However, some paleoclimatologists have suggested that additional episodes also occurred. Heinrich events, named for German marine geologist Hartmut Heinrich, are thought to be related to Dansgaard-Oeschger events and Bond cycles in the climate record.