A Record of Antarctic Climate and Ice Sheet History Recovered
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln ANDRILL Research and Publications Antarctic Drilling Program 2007 A Record of Antarctic Climate and Ice Sheet History Recovered T. R. Naish Victoria University of Wellington, [email protected] R. D. Powell Northern Illinois University, [email protected] R. H. Levy University of Nebraska–Lincoln, [email protected] F. Florindo Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e ulcanologiaV , [email protected] D. M. Harwood University of Nebraska at Lincoln, [email protected] See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/andrillrespub Part of the Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons Naish, T. R.; Powell, R. D.; Levy, R. H.; Florindo, F.; Harwood, D. M.; Kuhn, G.; Niessen, F.; Talarico, F.; and Wilson, G. S., "A Record of Antarctic Climate and Ice Sheet History Recovered" (2007). ANDRILL Research and Publications. 27. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/andrillrespub/27 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Antarctic Drilling Program at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in ANDRILL Research and Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Authors T. R. Naish, R. D. Powell, R. H. Levy, F. Florindo, D. M. Harwood, G. Kuhn, F. Niessen, F. Talarico, and G. S. Wilson This article is available at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ andrillrespub/27 Cooper, A. K., P. J. Barrett, H. Stagg, B. Storey, E. Stump, W. Wise, and the 10th ISAES editorial team, eds. (2008). Antarctica: A Keystone in a Changing World. Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi:10.3133/of2007-1047.kp07 Late Cenozoic Climate History of the Ross Embayment from the AND-1B Drill Hole: Culmination of Three Decades of Antarctic Margin Drilling T. R. Naish,1,2 R. D. Powell,3 P. J. Barrett,1 R. H. Levy,4 S. Henrys,1 G. S. Wilson,5 L. A. Krissek,6 F. Niessen, M. Pompilio,8 J. Ross,9 R. Scherer,3 F. Talarico,10 A. Pyne,1 and the ANDRILL-MIS Science team11 ABSTRACT Cenozoic is poorly known and dated. The latest Antarctic geological drilling program, ANDRILL, successfully cored Because of the paucity of exposed rock, the direct physical a 1285-m-long record of climate history spanning the last 13 record of Antarctic Cenozoic glacial history has become m.y. from subsea-floor sediment beneath the McMurdo Ice known only recently and then largely from offshore shelf Shelf (MIS), using drilling systems specially developed for basins through seismic surveys and drilling. The number operating through ice shelves. The cores provide the most of holes on the continental shelf has been small and largely complete Antarctic record to date of ice-sheet and climate confined to three areas (McMurdo Sound, Prydz Bay, and fluctuations for this period of Earth’s history. The >60 cycles Antarctic Peninsula), but even in McMurdo Sound, where of advance and retreat of the grounded ice margin preserved Oligocene and early Miocene strata are well cored, the late in the AND-1B record the evolution of the Antarctic ice sheet since a profound global cooling step in deep-sea oxygen isotope records ~14 m.y.a. A feature of particular interest is a ~90-m-thick interval of diatomite deposited during the warm Pliocene and representing an extended period (~200,000 1 Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, Wel- years) of locally open water, high phytoplankton productiv- lington, New Zealand ([email protected], [email protected], alex. [email protected]). ity, and retreat of the glaciers on land. 2Geological and Nuclear Sciences, Lower Hutt, New Zealand (t.naish@ gns.cri.nz, [email protected]). 3Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences, Northern HISTORICAL OVERVIEW Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA ([email protected]). The remarkable late Cenozoic record of glacial history in the 4ANDRILL Science Management Office, University of Nebraska- Lincoln, 126 Bessey Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588-0341, USA (rlevy2@unl. Ross Embayment recovered in late 2006 by the ANDRILL- edu). MIS Project is the culmination of work begun over three 5Department of Geology, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, New decades ago to document and understand the more recent Zealand ([email protected]). glacial history of Antarctica by drilling close to the margin. 6 Department of Geosciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, Ironically, although the last 3 million years of Earth’s climate USA ([email protected]). 7Department of Marine Geophysics, Alfred Wegener Institute, Postfach is often said to be the best studied interval of the Cenozoic, 12 01 61, Columbusstrasse, D-27515, Bremerhaven, Germany (fniessen@ the contribution of Antarctic ice volume changes is the most awi-bremerhaven.de). poorly understood. Until this most recent hole was drilled, 8Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Via della Faggiola, 32, the middle Cenozoic record was better known from several 9 I-56126 Pisa, Italy ([email protected]). holes in both the McMurdo region and Prydz Bay (Table New Mexico Geochronology Research Laboratory, Socorro, NM 87801, USA ([email protected]). 1). This is in general because the older strata were exposed 10Università di Siena, Dipartimento di Scienze delle Terra,Via Laterina closer to the coast through basin uplift, where younger strata 8, I-53100 Siena, Italy ([email protected]). had been removed by Neogene erosion, but also because in 11See http://www.andrill.org/support/references/appendixc.html. offshore basins glacial debris from the last glacial advance 1 2 ANTARCTICA: A KEYSTONE IN A CHANGING WORLD Table 1: Antarctic coastal and continental shelf rock-drilling sites: 1973 to 2006 Table 1 Antarctic Coastal and Continental Shelf Rock-Drilling Sites, 1973 to 2006 Elev (+) or Depth % Project Year Site Lat Long Wat.Dep (-) cored recov. Oldest core Reference Ross Sea DSDP 28 1973 270 77°26'S 178°30'W -634 m 423 m 62% gneiss - E Paleozoic Hays, Frakes et al., 1975 271 77°26'S 178°30'W -562 m 233 m 7% diamict clasts - E Pliocene 272 77°26'S 178°30'W -629 m 439 m 37% diamict - E Miocene 273 77°26'S 178°30'W -491 m 333 m 25% diamict - E Miocene McMurdo Sound area - onshore DVDP 1973 1 77°50'S 166°40'E 67 m 201 m 98% basalt - L Quat Kyle, 1981 1973 2 77°51'S 166°40'E 47 m 179 m 96% basalt - L Quat 1973 3 77°51'S 166°40'E 48 m 381 m 90% basalt - L Quat 1974 10 77°35'S 163°31'E 3 m 182 m 83% diamict - L Miocene Powell, 1981 1974 11 77°35'S 163°25'E 80.2 m 328 m 94% diamict - L Miocene 1974 12 77°38'S 162°51'E 75.1 m 185 m 98% migmatite - E Paleozoic McMurdo Sound area - offshore DVDP 15 1975 15 77°26'S 164°23'E -122 m 62 m 52% black sand - E Pleist Barrett and Treves, 1981 MSSTS 1979 1 77°34'S 163°23'E -195 m 230 m 62% mudstone - L Oligocene Barrett, 1986 CIROS 1986 1 77°05'S 164°30'E -197 m 702 m 98% boulder congl - L Eocene Barrett, 1989 CIROS 1984 2 77°41'S 163°32'E -211 m 168 m 67% gneiss - E Paleozoic Barrett and Hambrey, 1992 CRP 1997 1 77°00'S 163°45'E -154 m 148 m 86% diamict - E Miocene CRST, 1998 1998 2 77°00'S 163°43'E -178 m 624 m 95% mudstone - Oligocene CRST, 1999 1999 3 77°00'S 163°43'E -295 m 939 m 97% sandstone - Devonian CRST, 2000 ANDRILL 2006 1 77°55'S 167°01'E -840 m 1285 m 98% basalt - E Miocene Naish et al., 2006 Prydz Bay ODP 119 1988 739 67°17'S 75°05'E -412 m 487 m 34% diamict - L Eo-E Oligocene Barron, Larsen et al., 1988 1988 740 68°41'S 76°43'E -808 m 226 m 32% red beds - ?Triassic 1988 741 68°23'S 76°23'E -551 m 128 m 26% sandst, siltst -?E Cretaceous 1988 742 67°33S 75°24'E -416 m 316 m 53% mudst, diamict - ?Eo-Olig 1988 743 66°55'S 74°42'E -989 m 97 m 22% diamict - Pleistocene ODP 188 2000 1166 67°42'S 74°47'E -475 m 381 m 19% claystone - L Cretaceous O'Brien, Cooper, Richter et al., 2001 Antarctic Peninsula Barker, Camerlenghi, Acton et ODP 178 1998 1097 66°24'S 70°45'W -563 m 437 m 14% diamict - E Pliocene al., 1999 1998 1098 64°52'S 64°12'W -1010 m 47 m 99% mud - Holocene 1998 1099 64°57'S 64°19'W -1400 m 108 m 102% mud - Holocene 1998 1100 66°53'S 65°42'W -459 m 111 m 5% diamict - Pleistocene 1998 1102 66°48'S 65°51'W -431 m 15 m 6% diamict - Pleistocene? 1998 1103 64°00'S 65°28'W -494 m 363 m 12% diamict - L Miocene SHALDRIL 2005 1 62°17'S 58°45'W -488 m 108 m 87% mud - L Pleistocene http://shaldril.rice.edu/ SHALDRIL 2006 3 63°51'S 54°39'W -340 m 20 m 32% mudst - L Eo/E Oligocene Anderson et al., 2007 2006 5 63°15'S 52°22'W -506 m 23 m 40% muddy sand - mid Miocene 2006 6 63°20'S 52°22'W -532 m 21 m n/a muddy sand - E Pliocene 2006 12 63°16'S 52°50'W -442 m 4 m 64% mudst - Oligocene NAISH ET AL.