Issue of the genesis of recent sediments on the Barents Sea shelf
This paper is a reply to the comment on our two previous publications (Krapivner, 2009a, 2009b) devoted to the genesis of recent sediments on the Barents Sea shelf in (Epshtein et al., 2011a, 2011b). It is substantiated that the physical nature of the reflection of recent sediments in seismoacoustic records, a very important point for the lithofacies analysis, is incorrectly interpreted by the above opponents. The paper presents geochronological and paleomagnetic data confirming invalidity of the popular concepts about the link between the cover of poorly consolidated sediments and the epoch of the last deglaciation. We show incorrectness of the statement of the opponents about the redeposited character of Pliocene-Quaternary marine biota of diamictons and the glacial processing of coarse-clastic material therein. Diverse properties of recent sediments and their topography artificially united into a complex of indicators of the glacial paragenesis are either simply explained in terms of the natural (for the Barents Sea) icemarine sedimentation or attributed to postsedimentary processes during intense neotectonic activity of the Barents Sea shelf.