ESSDD Earth System Science Data Discussions ESSDD Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss. 1866-3591 Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/essd-2026-253 Circum-Arctic Sediment PROvenance Database (CASPROD): A database of mineralogy and geochemistry for the Circum-Arctic surface sediments Yao Zhengquan https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9185-2385 1 2 Feng Han 1 Stein Ruediger https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4453-9564 3 4 5 Liu Yanguang 1 2 Shi Xuefa 1 2 Vasilenko Yuri https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2067-8869 6 Nam Seung-Il 7 Dong Linsen 1 2 Shi Fengdeng 1 2 Wang Kunshan 1 2 Chen Zhihua 1 2 Qiao Shuqing 1 2 Li Qiuling 1 Zhao Song 1 Pei Xinyue 1 Guo Huiyu 1 Liu Yaru 1 Key Laboratory of Marine Geology and Metallogeny, First Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, 266061 Qingdao, China Laboratory for Marine Geology, Qingdao Marine Science and Technology Center, 266237 Qingdao, China Faculty of Geosciences, University of Bremen, 28359 Bremen, Germany Frontiers Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System, Key Laboratory of Marine Chemistry Theory and Technology, Ocean University of China, 266100 Qingdao, China Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, 27568 Bremerhaven, Germany V.I.Il’Ichev Pacific Oceanological Institute, Far East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 690041 Vladivostok, Russia Division of Glacial Environment Research, Korea Polar Research Institute, 21990 Incheon, Korea 20 04 2026 2026 1 31 Copyright: © 2026 Zhengquan Yao et al. 2026 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This article is available from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-253/ The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-253/essd-2026-253.pdf

Arctic amplification is fundamentally reshaping the cryosphere, leading to accelerated sea-ice retreat, permafrost thaw, and intensified riverine discharge. These shifts collectively modify sediment source-to-sink dynamic processes in the Arctic Ocean. While surface sediments in this semi-enclosed basin integrate complex signals from diverse Eurasian and North American source regions, disentangling these provenance signatures requires a robust, multi-proxy framework that has historically been hampered by fragmented, heterogeneous datasets. Here, we present CASPROD (Circum-Arctic Sediment PROvenance Database), a standardized and high-resolution mineralogical and geochemical synthesis of Arctic surface sediments. The dataset integrates multi-proxy records from a broad spatial network, comprising 4308 sampling stations, including bulk sediment Sr-Nd isotopes (n=175 stations), detrital zircon U-Pb ages (n=4671 grains from 21 key stations), clay mineral assemblages (n=1647 stations), and detrital mineral proportions (n=2465 stations). These integrated proxies provide cross-validated sediment provenance constraints: Sr-Nd isotopes discriminate between ancient cratonic shields and juvenile orogenic belts; detrital zircon geochronology yields diagnostic age spectra distinguishing Eurasian versus North American crustal affinities; and clay and detrital mineralogy reflects different circum-Arctic sediment provenances, lithologies and transport processes. By synthesizing these diverse datasets, CASPROD delineates robust pan-Arctic spatial provenance domains and transport pathways. This database thus provides a critical benchmark for reconstructing palaeoceanographic, glacial, and sedimentary dynamics over geological timescales. CASPROD is freely available online (<a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.31926927">https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.31926927</a>; Yao et al., 2026) in multiple machine-readable formats (e.g., tabular tables, GIS shapefiles, and GEOTIFF).

 National Natural Science Foundation of China 42525606