The Eastern Ross Sea continental shelf during the Cenozoic: implications for the West Antarctic ice sheet development

Santis, Laura De; Prato, Stefano Del; Brancolini, Giuliano; Lovo, Massimo; Torelli, L.

doi:10.1016/s0921-8181(99)00056-9

Cited by 94 publications

(104 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…The outer shelf is characterized by considerable progradation of sedimentary strata that downlap onto an at least 1300 m thick sequence of aggraded sedimentary strata deposited over the basement high. Similar to observations on other Antarctic shelves (e.g., Cooper et al, 1991;Eittreim et al, 1995;De Santis et al, 1999), the onset of progradation may be interpreted as the beginning of major subglacial sediment transport across the entire ASE shelf by an advanced grounded ice sheet. Although ASS-u4 is observed as a major glacial erosional unconformity, ASS-u3 is likely to mark the beginning of the pre-glacial to glacial transition with first glacier advances onto the inner to middle shelf.…”

Section: Sedimentation Patterns and Chronological Constraintssupporting

confidence: 70%

“…Despite the remnants of seafloor multiple reflections at the shelf break, it is possible to trace ASS-u4 to the base of the continental slope and farther onto the continental rise where it can be correlated with the top of seismostratigraphic Unit 2 of Uenzelmann-Neben and Gohl (2012). They estimated an age of 21-14 Ma for their Unit 2 from an indirect correlation to a preglacial to glacial transitional stage with ice caps expanding onto the eastern Ross Sea shelf as observed by De Santis et al (1999). The uppermost unconformity ASS-u5 truncates middle shelf strata down to about 400 m depth below seafloor and can also be traced onto the continental rise, where it corresponds to the top reflector of Unit 3 with an age of 4 Ma (Uenzelmann-Neben and Gohl, 2012) derived from long-distance horizon correlation to DSDP Site 324 in the western Bellingshausen Sea (Tucholke et al, 1976).…”

Section: Eastern Ase Shelf and Pine Island Baymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Only the oldest unconformity ASS-u1 does not correlate well with RSU6. By adopting the ages of the correlation chart for the Ross Sea shelf by De Santis et al (1999), we estimate a preliminary age model for the ASE shelf sediments (Fig. 10).…”

Section: Sedimentation Patterns and Chronological Constraintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Seismic stratigraphic record of the Amundsen Sea Embayment shelf from pre-glacial to recent times: Evidence for a dynamic West Antarctic ice sheet

et al. 2013

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Section: Sedimentation Patterns and Chronological Constraintssupporting

confidence: 70%

Section: Eastern Ase Shelf and Pine Island Baymentioning

confidence: 98%

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Seismic stratigraphic record of the Amundsen Sea Embayment shelf from pre-glacial to recent times: Evidence for a dynamic West Antarctic ice sheet

et al. 2013

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“…At 15.7 Ma, a diatomite with abundant pollen, algae, and other biomarkers suggests a warmer than present (mean surface temperature of ~10°C) climate during the MMCO (Feakins et al, 2012;Warny et al, 2009). At 300 mbsf, a 300 ky disconformity is thought to be equivalent to Unconformity RSU4, suggesting a shelf-wide advance of the marine-based ice sheet during the MMCT (Figures F6, F8) (De Santis et al, 1999;Passchier et al, 2011).…”

Section: Geological Setting and Previous Drillingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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McKay¹,

Santis²,

Kulhanek³

2017

International Ocean Discovery Program Scientific Prospectus

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Observations from the past several decades indicate that the Southern Ocean is warming significantly and that Southern Hemisphere westerly winds have migrated southward and strengthened due to increasing atmospheric CO 2 concentrations and/or ozone depletion. These changes have been linked to thinning of Antarctic ice shelves and marine terminating glaciers. Results from geologic drilling on Antarctica's continental margins show late Neogene marine-based ice sheet variability, and numerical models indicate a fundamental role for oceanic heat in controlling this variability over at least the past 20 My. Although evidence for past ice sheet variability has been observed in marginal settings, sedimentological sequences from the outer continental shelf are required to evaluate the extent of past ice sheet variability and the role of oceanic heat flux in controlling ice sheet mass balance.

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“…Adopting the ages of the seismostratigraphic units and unconformities on the Ross Sea shelf, which are relatively well constrained by DSDP Leg 28 and ANDRILL records (e.g., De Santis et al, 1999;McKay et al, 2009), the shelf basin formation model (Figure F5) for the ASE shows the development from a Cretaceous synrift basin to glacially dominated strata in the Neogene and Quaternary . The seismostratigraphic record from the ASE shelf is consistent with records from the Ross Sea (Bartek et al, 1991;Chow and Bart, 2003) and James Ross Basin in the northwestern Weddell Sea (Smith and Anderson, 2010), indicating a Miocene intensification of glaciation (De Santis et al, 1997) in accordance with findings from the Core AND-2A (Warny et al, 2009;Passchier et al, 2011) and the Shallow Scientific Drilling on The Antarctic Continental Margin (SHALDRIL)-II drill cores .…”

Section: Geological Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gohl¹,

Wellner²,

Klaus³

2017

International Ocean Discovery Program Scientific Prospectus

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The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is largely marine based and thus highly sensitive to both climatic and oceanographic changes. Therefore, the WAIS has likely had a very dynamic history over the last several million years. A complete collapse of the WAIS would result in a global sea level rise of 3.3-4.3 m, yet the world's scientific community is not able to predict its future behavior. Moreover, knowledge about past behavior of the WAIS is poor, in particular during geological times with climatic conditions similar to those expected for the near and distant future. Reconstructions and quantifications of partial or complete WAIS collapses in the past are urgently needed for constraining and testing ice sheet models that aim to predict future WAIS behavior and the potential contribution of the WAIS to global sea level rise. Large uncertainties exist regarding the chronology, extent, rates, and spatial and temporal variability of past advances and retreats of the WAIS across the continental shelves. These uncertainties largely result from the fundamental lack of data from drill cores recovered proximal to the WAIS. The continental shelf and rise of the Amundsen Sea are prime targets for drilling because the records are expected to yield archives of pure WAIS dynamics unaffected by other ice sheets and the WAIS sector draining into the Amundsen Sea Embayment (ASE) currently experiences the largest ice loss in Antarctica (Paolo et al., 2015).We propose a series of drill sites for the ASE shelf where seismic data reveal seaward-dipping sedimentary sequences that span from the preglacial depositional phase to the most recent glacial periods. Our strategy is to drill a transect from the oldest sequences close to the bedrock/basin boundary at the middle-inner shelf transition to the youngest sequences on the outer shelf in the eastern ASE. If the eastern ASE is inaccessible due to sea ice cover, a similar transect of sites can be drilled on the western ASE. The core transect will provide a detailed history of the glacial cycles in the Amundsen Sea region and allow comparison to the glacial history from the Ross Sea sector. In addition, deep-water sites on the continental rise of the Amundsen Sea are selected for recovering continuous records of glacially transported sediments and detailed archives of climatic and oceanographic changes throughout glacial-interglacial cycles. We will apply a broad suite of analytical techniques, including multiproxy analyses, to address our objectives of reconstructing the onset of glaciation in the greenhouse to icehouse transition, processes of dynamic ice sheet behavior during the Neogene and Quaternary, and ocean conditions associated with the glacial cycles.The five principal objectives of Expedition 379 are as follows:1. To reconstruct the glacial history of West Antarctica from the Paleogene to recent times and the dynamic behavior of the WAIS during the Neogene and Quaternary, especially possible partial or full WAIS collapses, and the WAIS contribution to past sea level...

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The Eastern Ross Sea continental shelf during the Cenozoic: implications for the West Antarctic ice sheet development

Cited by 94 publications

References 60 publications

Seismic stratigraphic record of the Amundsen Sea Embayment shelf from pre-glacial to recent times: Evidence for a dynamic West Antarctic ice sheet

Seismic stratigraphic record of the Amundsen Sea Embayment shelf from pre-glacial to recent times: Evidence for a dynamic West Antarctic ice sheet

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