ALBERT

Description: A 1138-meter sediment core (AND-2A) recovered from the Southern McMurdo Sound sector of the Ross Sea comprises a near-continuous record of Antarctic climate and ice sheet variability through the Early to early Middle Miocene (20.2 to 14.5 million years ago), including an interval of inferred sustained global warmth known as the Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO). The record preserves 55 sedimentary sequences that reflect cycles of glacial advance and retreat. A new analysis of proxy environmental data from the AND-2A core, and synthesis with regional geological information, show that the early to middle Miocene Antarctic climate ranged from cold polar conditions, similar to Antarctica during the Holocene, to those that characterise modern sub-polar environments. Four disconformities that punctuate the sedimentary sequence coincide with regionally mapped seismic discontinuities and reflect transient expansion of marine-based ice across the Ross Sea. The timing of these major marine-based ice sheet advances correlates with shifts in highly-resolved deep sea isotope records and major drops in eustatic sea-level indicating the global nature of these events. In contrast, three distinct intervals in the core indicate that this high latitude site was periodically influenced by an ice sheet margin that had retreated beyond the coastline. These relatively large-scale changes in climate and ice sheet extent occurred under atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations that generally varied between 300 to 500 ppm. Therefore, our reconstructions suggest that Antarctica’s climate and ice sheets were sensitive to modest changes in greenhouse gas forcing and support previous studies, which indicate that marine-based portions of theWAIS and EAIS can retreat under climatic conditions that were similar to those projected for our future under current levels of atmospheric CO2.

Description: Antarctic ice sheet and Southern Ocean paleoceanographic configurations during the late Oligocene are not well resolved. They are however important to understand the influence of high-latitude Southern Hemisphere feedbacks on global climate under CO2 scenarios (between 400 and 750 ppm) projected by the IPCC for this century, assuming unabated CO2 emissions. Sediments recovered by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) at Site U1356, offshore of the Wilkes Land margin in East Antarctica, provide an opportunity to study ice sheet and paleoceanographic configurations during the late Oligocene (26-25 Ma). Our study, based on a combination of sediment facies analysis, magnetic susceptibility, density, and X-Ray Fluorescence geochemical data, shows that glacial and interglacial sediments are continuously reworked by bottom-currents, with maximum velocities occurring during the interglacial periods. Glacial sediments record poorly ventilated, low-oxygenation bottom water conditions, interpreted to result from a northward shift of westerly winds and surface oceanic fronts. Interglacial sediments record more oxygenated and ventilated bottom water conditions and strong current velocities, which suggests enhanced mixing of the water masses as a result of a southward shift of the Polar Front. Intervals with preserved carbonated nannofossils within some of the interglacial facies are interpreted to form under warmer paleoclimatic conditions when less corrosive warmer northern component water (e.g. North Atlantic sourced deep water) had a greater influence on the Site. Spectral analysis on the late Oligocene sediment interval show that the glacial-interglacial cyclicity and related displacements of the Southern Ocean frontal systems between 26-25 Ma were forced mainly by obliquity. The paucity of iceberg rafted debris (IRD) throughout the studied interval contrasts with earlier Oligocene and post-Miocene Climate Optimum sections from Site U1356 and with late Oligocene strata from the Ross Sea, which contain IRD and evidence for coastal glaciers and sea ice. These observations, supported by elevated sea surface paleotemperatures, the absence of sea-ice, and reconstructions of fossil pollen between 26 and 25 Ma at Site U1356, suggest that open ocean water conditions prevailed. Combined, these evidences suggest that glaciers or ice caps likely occupied the topographic highs and lowlands of the now marine Wilkes Subglacial Basin (WSB). Unlike today, the continental shelf was not over-deepened and thus ice sheets in the WSB were likely land-based and marine-based ice sheet expansion was likely limited to coastal regions.