Pekar, Stephen F

The lowest 501 m (similar to 1139-638 m) of the AND-2A core from southern Mc-Murdo Sound is the most detailed and complete record of early Miocene sediments in Antarctica and indicates substantial variability in Antarctic ice sheet activity during early Miocene time. There are two main pulses of diamictite accumulation recorded in the core, and three significant intervals with almost no coarse clasts. Each diamictite package comprises several sequences consistent with ice advance-retreat episodes. The oldest phase of diamictite deposition, Composite Sequence 1 (CS1), has evidence for grounded ice at the drill site and has been dated around 20.2-20.1 Ma. It likely coincides with cooling associated with isotope event Mi1aa. This is overlain by a diamictite-free, sandstone-dominated interval, CS2 that includes three coarsening-upward deltaic cycles, is inferred to mark substantial warming, and has an inferred age range between 20.1 and 20.05 Ma. Above this is an interval with variable amounts of diamictite (CS3), with indicators of ice grounding, that is inferred to record ice advance relative to CS2, and is overlain by an similar to 100-m-thick mud-rich interval (CS4) with no sedimentological evidence for direct glacial influence at the drill site (ca. 19.4-18.7 Ma). A third overlying diamictite-rich interval (CS5) overlies an unconformity spanning 18.7-17.8 Ma (coinciding with isotope event Mi1b), and records a return to more ice-influenced conditions at the drill site in late early Miocene time. The overall picture for the early Miocene (spanning the period 20.2-17.35 Ma) is one of ice advance alternating with periods of ice retreat and hence significant global climate fluctuations after the permanent establishment of the Antarctic ice sheet at the Eocene/Oligocene boundary, and preceding the relative warmth of the middle Miocene climatic optimum (ca. 17.5-14.5 Ma). Sedimentary cyclicity in CS1 and CS2 is consistent with similar to 21 k.y. precession but in CS3 the frequency is closer to 100 k.y. (consistent with eccentricity), with a possible change to 20 k.y. precession in CS4. CS5 cyclicity is consistent with obliquity forcing. Provenance data are consistent with local Trans antarctic Mountains glacial activity under precessional control in CS1 and more southerly ice-cap build up under 100 k.y. eccentricity and obliquity control during CS3 and CS5, respectively.

New magnetobiostratigraphic data for the late Oligocene through early Miocene at Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Hole 516F provide a significantly revised age model, which permits reevaluation of developments that led to the Mi-1 glacial event at the Oligocene-Miocene boundary. Our new high-resolution paleomagnetic study, which is supported by quantitative calcareous nannofossil and planktonic foraminiferal analyses, significantly refines previous age models for Oligocene-Miocene sediments from DSDP Hole 516F, with ages that are systematically younger than those previously determined. In some parts of the Oligocene, the discrepancy with previous studies exceeds 450 kyr. Based on this new age model, we infer a progressive increase in sedimentation rate and paleoproductivity between circa 23.9 Ma and circa 22.9 Ma, with the highest rate coinciding with the Mi-1 glacial event at the Oligocene-Miocene boundary. This productivity increase would have resulted in higher rates of carbon burial and in turn a drawdown of atmospheric CO2. Immediately afterward, an abrupt decrease in sedimentation rate and paleoproductivity suggests that the Mi-1 deglaciation was associated with decreased carbon input into the ocean. Elevated sedimentation rates are also documented at ~24.5 Ma, coincident with the Oi2D glacioeustatic event. The presence of volcanic material within the sediments during these glacial events is interpreted to have resulted from redeposition of sediment scoured from nearby sites on the Rio Grande Rise due to transient variations in bottom water flow patterns.

In 2007, the Antarctic Geological Drilling Program (ANDRILL) drilled 1138.54 m of strata ~10 km off the East Antarctic coast, includ ing an expanded early to middle Miocene succession not previously recovered from the Antarctic continental shelf. Here, we pre sent a facies model, distribution, and paleoclimatic interpretation for the AND-2A drill hole, which enable us, for the fi rst time, to reconstruct periods of early and middle Miocene glacial advance and retreat and paleo environmental changes at an ice-proximal site. Three types of facies associations can be recognized that imply signifi cantly different paleoclimatic interpretations. (1) A diamictite-dominated facies association represents glacially dominated depositional environments, including subglacial environments, with only brief intervals where ice-free coasts existed, and periods when the ice sheet was periodically larger than the modern ice sheet. (2) A stratified diamictite and mudstone facies association includes facies characteristic of open-marine to iceberg-infl uenced depositional environments and is more consistent with a very dynamic ice sheet, with a grounding line south of the modern position. (3) A mudstone-dominated facies association generally lacks diamictites and was produced in a glacially infl uenced hemipelagic depositional environment. Based on the distribution of these facies associations, we can conclude that the Antarctic ice sheets were dynamic, with grounding lines south of the modern location at ca. 20.1–19.6 Ma and ca. 19.3–18.7 Ma and during the Miocene climatic optimum, ca. 17.6–15.4 Ma, with ice-sheet and sea-ice minima at ca. 16.5–16.3 Ma and ca. 15.7–15.6 Ma. While glacial minima at ca. 20.1–19.6 Ma and ca. 19.3–18.7 Ma were characterized by temperate margins, an increased abundance of gravelly facies and diatomaceous siltstone and a lack of meltwater plume deposits suggest a cooler and drier climate with polythermal conditions for the Miocene climatic optimum (ca. 17.6–15.4 Ma). Several periods of major ice growth with a grounding line traversing the drill site are recognized between ca. 20.2 and 17.6 Ma, and after ca. 15.4 Ma, with evidence of cold polar glaciers with ice shelves. The AND-2A core provides proximal evidence that during the middle Miocene climate transition, an ice sheet larger than the modern ice sheet was already present by ca. 14.7 Ma, ~1 m.y. earlier than generally inferred from deep-sea oxygen isotope records. These fi ndings highlight the importance of high-latitude ice-proximal records for the interpretation of far-fi eld proxies across major climate transitions.

Present understanding of Antarctic climate change during the Early to Mid-Miocene, including major cycles of glacial expansion and contraction, relies in large part on stable isotope proxies from deep sea core drilling. Here, we summarize the lithostratigraphy of the ANDRILL Southern McMurdo Sound Project drillcore AND- 2A. This core offers a hitherto unavailable ice-proximal stratigraphic archive from a high-accommodation continental margin setting, and provides clear evidence of repeated fluctuations in climate, ice expansion/ contraction and attendant sea-level change over the period c. 20.2–14.2 Ma, with a more fragmentary record of Late Miocene and Pliocene time. The core is divided into seventy-four high-frequency (fourth- or fifthorder) glacimarine sequences recording repeated advances and retreats of glaciers into and out of the Victoria Land Basin. The section can be resolved into thirteen longer-term, composite (third-order) sequences, which comprise packages of higher frequency sequences that show a consistent stratigraphic stacking pattern (Stratigraphic Motif). The distribution of the six recognized motifs indicates intervals of less and more iceproximal, and temperate to subpolar/polar climate, through the Miocene period. The core demonstrates a dynamic climate regime throughout the Early to Mid-Miocene that may be correlated to some previouslyrecognized events such as the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum, and provides a detailed reference point from which to evaluate stable isotope proxy records from the deep-sea.

Bio- and magnetostratigraphic age data and nannofossil assemblage analysis from ODP Site 1165 evidence an anomalous warming event of the surface waters in and around Prydz Bay during the Early Pleistocene, approximately 1 Ma. This results from an increase in the abundance of nannofossils at Site 1165, that occurred at 1 Ma. Detailed high-resolution sampling permits a new bio-magnetostratigraphic interpretation for ODP Site 1165. A decrease in δ18O values at Sites 1165 and 1167 also occurs at this time, supporting the presence of warming conditions in the Prydz Bay area. A return to colder surface waters, indicated by the absence or rare occurrence of nannofossils in the upper cores from Site 1165, suggests that more stable glacial conditions existed in the Prydz Bay basin, for the last 900 ka. The biogenic carbonate sequence identified at Site 1167 is similar to the carbonate shales recovered from the Cape Roberts Project 1. Both have been dated at about 1 Ma, supporting the idea that a significant surface waters warming occurred during the Pleistocene. These data and the presence of calcareous nannofossils from locations around the Antarctic continent also suggest that the warming event was not limited to the analysed basin, but it extended around the East Antarctic continent. These new evidence call for a re-evaluation of the notion that the East Antarctic Ice-Sheet has experienced stable conditions similar to today since the late Neogene.