Deep-sea surface clay sediments and ice-dropped clasts collected at 3998 m water depth in theDeep-sea surface clay sediments and ice-dropped clasts collected at 3998 m water depth in the Nansen Basin (88.4°N–28.4°E) have been examined for palynomorphs and particulate organic matter(POM). Quaternary–Holocene marine palynomorphs and dispersed organic particles are subordinate to pre-Quaternary material and the studied samples contain mostly terrigenous organic matter. Most of the palynomorphs and organic matter are reworked from strata ranging from Late Devonian to late Cenozoic in age. The Quaternary–Holocene marine assemblages contain mostly species with wide thermaltolerances, and only few Arctic to cold-water specimens. This points towards warmer waterconditions than today during the time of deposition. Detrital U–Pb geochronology from one ice-dropped clast is compatible with deposition in the Devonian, with a detrital zircon age spectrum characterised byPalaeoproterozoic through Neoproterozoic ages and a youngest peak at c. 400 Ma. The possibleprovenance areas of most of the reworked POM and ice-dropped clasts in the Nansen Basin are far from the deep-basin sink, including areas on the Siberian Craton drained by the Lena River and other major rivers flowing into the Laptev Sea, as well as areas in the northern Barents Shelf between Svalbard and Severnaya Zemlya, where glacially eroded troughs run into the Nansen Basin.