| 1. |
- Bentley, Michael J., et al.
(författare)
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A community-based geological reconstruction of Antarctic Ice Sheet deglaciation since the Last Glacial Maximum
- 2014
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Ingår i: Quaternary Science Reviews. - : Elsevier BV. - 0277-3791 .- 1873-457X. ; 100, s. 1-9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A robust understanding of Antarctic Ice Sheet deglacial history since the Last Glacial Maximum is important in order to constrain ice sheet and glacial-isostatic adjustment models, and to explore the forcing mechanisms responsible for ice sheet retreat. Such understanding can be derived from a broad range of geological and glaciological datasets and recent decades have seen an upsurge in such data gathering around the continent and Sub-Antarctic islands. Here, we report a new synthesis of those datasets, based on an accompanying series of reviews of the geological data, organised by sector. We present a series of timeslice maps for 20 ka, 15 ka, 10 ka and 5 ka, including grounding line position and ice sheet thickness changes, along with a clear assessment of levels of confidence. The reconstruction shows that the Antarctic Ice sheet did not everywhere reach the continental shelf edge at its maximum, that initial retreat was asynchronous, and that the spatial pattern of deglaciation was highly variable, particularly on the inner shelf. The deglacial reconstruction is consistent with a moderate overall excess ice volume and with a relatively small Antarctic contribution to meltwater pulse la. We discuss key areas of uncertainty both around the continent and by time interval, and we highlight potential priorities for future work. The synthesis is intended to be a resource for the modelling and glacial geological community.
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| 2. |
- Graham, Alastair G.C., et al.
(författare)
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Rapid retreat of Thwaites Glacier in the pre-satellite era
- 2022
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Ingår i: Nature Geoscience. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1752-0894 .- 1752-0908. ; 15, s. 706-713
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Understanding the recent history of Thwaites Glacier, and the processes controlling its ongoing retreat, is key to projecting Antarctic contributions to future sea-level rise. Of particular concern is how the glacier grounding zone might evolve over coming decades where it is stabilized by sea-floor bathymetric highs. Here we use geophysical data from an autonomous underwater vehicle deployed at the Thwaites Glacier ice front, to document the ocean-floor imprint of past retreat from a sea-bed promontory. We show patterns of back-stepping sedimentary ridges formed daily by a mechanism of tidal lifting and settling at the grounding line at a time when Thwaites Glacier was more advanced than it is today. Over a duration of 5.5 months, Thwaites grounding zone retreated at a rate of >2.1 km per year—twice the rate observed by satellite at the fastest retreating part of the grounding zone between 2011 and 2019. Our results suggest that sustained pulses of rapid retreat have occurred at Thwaites Glacier in the past two centuries. Similar rapid retreat pulses are likely to occur in the near future when the grounding zone migrates back off stabilizing high points on the sea floor.
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| 3. |
- Larter, Robert D., et al.
(författare)
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Reconstruction of changes in the Amundsen Sea and BellingshausenSea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet since the Last GlacialMaximum
- 2013
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Ingår i: Quaternary Science Reviews. - : Elsevier BV. - 0277-3791 .- 1873-457X. ; 100, s. 56-86
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Marine and terrestrial geological and marine geophysical data that constrain deglaciation since the LastGlacial Maximum (LGM) of the sector of theWest Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) draining into the AmundsenSea and Bellingshausen Sea have been collated and used as the basis for a set of time-slice reconstructions.The drainage basins in these sectors constitute a little more than one-quarter of the area ofthe WAIS, but account for about one-third of its surface accumulation. Their mass balance is becomingincreasingly negative, and therefore they account for an even larger fraction of currentWAIS discharge. Ifall of the ice in these sectors of the WAIS were discharged to the ocean, global sea level would rise byca 2 m.There is compelling evidence that grounding lines of palaeo-ice streams were at, or close to, thecontinental shelf edge along the Amundsen Sea and Bellingshausen Sea margins during the last glacialperiod. However, the few cosmogenic surface exposure ages and ice core data available from the interiorofWest Antarctica indicate that ice surface elevations there have changed little since the LGM. In the fewareas from which cosmogenic surface exposure ages have been determined near the margin of the icesheet, they generally suggest that there has been a gradual decrease in ice surface elevation since pre-Holocene times. Radiocarbon dates from glacimarine and the earliest seasonally open marine sedimentsin continental shelf cores that have been interpreted as providing approximate ages for post-LGMgrounding-line retreat indicate different trajectories of palaeo-ice stream recession in the Amundsen Seaand Bellingshausen Sea embayments. The areas were probably subject to similar oceanic, atmosphericand eustatic forcing, in which case the differences are probably largely a consequence of how topographicand geological factors have affected ice flow, and of topographic influences on snow accumulation andwarm water inflow across the continental shelf.Pauses in ice retreat are recorded where there are “bottle necks” in cross-shelf troughs in both embayments.The highest retreat rates presently constrained by radiocarbon dates from sediment cores arefound where the grounding line retreated across deep basins on the inner shelf in the Amundsen Sea,which is consistent with the marine ice sheet instability hypothesis. Deglacial ages from the Amundsen Sea Embayment (ASE) and Eltanin Bay (southern Bellingshausen Sea) indicate that the ice sheet hadalready retreated close to its modern limits by early Holocene time, which suggests that the rapid icethinning, flow acceleration, and grounding line retreat observed in this sector over recent decades areunusual in the context of the past 10,000 years.
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| 4. |
- Lepp, Allison P., et al.
(författare)
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Insights into glacial processes from micromorphology of silt-sized sediment
- 2024
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Ingår i: The Cryosphere. - 1994-0416 .- 1994-0424. ; 18:5, s. 2297-2319
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Silt-rich meltwater plume deposits (MPDs) analyzed from marine sediment cores have elucidated relationships that are clearly connected, yet difficult to constrain, between subglacial hydrology, ice-marginal landforms, and grounding-zone retreat patterns for several glacial catchments. Few attempts have been made to infer details of subglacial hydrology, such as flow regime, geometry of drainage pathways, and mode(s) of sediment transport through time, from grain-scale characteristics of MPDs. Using sediment samples from MPD, till, and grounding-zone proximal diamicton collected offshore of six modern and relict glacial catchments in both hemispheres, we examine grain shape distributions and microtextures (collectively, grain micromorphology) of the silt fraction to explore whether grains are measurably altered from their subglacial sources via meltwater action. We find that 75 % of all imaged grains (n = 9400) can be described by 25 % of the full range of measured shape morphometrics, indicating grain shape homogenization through widespread and efficient abrasive processes in subglacial environments. Although silt grains from MPDs exhibit edge rounding more often than silt grains from tills, grain surface textures indicative of fluvial transport (e.g., v-shaped percussions) occur in only a modest number of grains. Furthermore, MPD grain surfaces retain several textures consistent with transport beneath glacial ice (e.g., straight or arcuate steps, (sub)linear fractures) in comparable abundances to till grains. Significant grain shape alteration in MPDs compared to their till sources is observed in sediments from glacial regions where (1) high-magnitude, potentially catastrophic meltwater drainage events are inferred from marine sediment records and (2) submarine landforms suggest supraglacial melt contributed to the subglacial hydrological budget. This implies that quantifiable grain shape alteration in MPDs could reflect a combination of high-energy flow of subglacial meltwater, persistent sediment entrainment, and/or long sediment transport distances through subglacial drainage pathways. Integrating grain micromorphology into analysis of MPDs in site-specific studies could therefore aid in distinguishing periods of persistent, well-connected subglacial discharge from periods of sluggish or disorganized drainage. In the wider context of deglacial marine sedimentary and bathymetric records, a grain micromorphological approach may bolster our ability to characterize ice response to subglacial meltwater transmission through time. This work additionally demonstrates that glacial and fluvial surface textures are retained on silt-sized quartz grains in adequate amounts for microtexture analysis, which has heretofore been conducted exclusively on the sand fraction. Therefore, grain microtextures can be examined on silt-rich glaciogenic deposits that contain little to no sand as a means to evaluate sediment transport processes.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Reinardy, Benedict T. I., et al.
(författare)
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Streaming flow of an Antarctic Peninsula palaeo-ice stream, both by basal sliding and deformation of substrate
- 2011
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Ingår i: Journal of Glaciology. - : International Glaciological Society. - 0022-1430 .- 1727-5652. ; 57:204, s. 596-608
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Acoustic sub-bottom profiler surveys on the northeast Antarctic Peninsula shelf indicate that parts of the seabed are underlain by an acoustically transparent layer that is thin on the inner shelf and becomes thicker and more extensive towards the outer shelf. Sedimentological and geophysical data are combined to construct a bed model where streaming ice flow, by both deformation and basal sliding, took place within cross-shelf troughs. The model suggests only limited deformation contributed to fast flow on the inner shelf, i.e. in the onset zone of ice streaming, where the bed was predominantly underlain by a stiff till. Thus, fast ice flow in this area might have been by basal sliding, with deformation confined to discontinuous patches of soft till <40cm thick. Towards the middle and outer shelf, extensive, thick sequences of soft till suggest a change in the dominant subglacial process towards widespread deformation. This downstream change from basal sliding to subglacial deformation is manifest in the transition from stiff-till dominance to soft-till dominance, while a downstream increase in ice flow velocity is evident from the complex geomorphic imprint on the inner shelf evolving to the more restricted set of bedforms on the outer shelf.
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| 7. |
- Reinardy, Benedict T. I., et al.
(författare)
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Till genesis at the bed of an Antarctic Peninsula palaeo-ice stream as indicated by micromorphological analysis
- 2011
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Ingår i: Boreas. - : Wiley. - 0300-9483 .- 1502-3885. ; 40:3, s. 498-517
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sediment cores from cross-shelf troughs on the NE Antarctic Peninsula shelf recovered tills with variable shear strengths that represent different subglacial depositional regimes. In addition to detailed qualitative micromorphological descriptions, a quantitative method was applied, which revealed a higher abundance of boudins and intraclasts and a lower abundance of crushed and fractured grains in samples from the soft till compared with samples from the underlying stiff till. This is the first evidence of significant (micro-scale) differences between the two types of till and thus strengthens previous interpretations that were based primarily on shear strength. The differences between the soft and stiff till relate to a deforming continuum whereby the initial deposition of till as ice advanced across the shelf produced ductile structures before dewatering and compaction led to the formation of brittle structures such as crushed and fractured grains in the now stiff till. A change in ice-flow dynamics led to streaming flow and the deformation of the upper parts of the stiff till that was being reworked into a soft till. The soft till facilitated ice streaming, and progressive shearing led to the homogenization of the ice stream substrate, which was partially advected downstream. The resulting till thus contains poly-deformational structures, with deformation structures inherited from the stiff till being generally poorly preserved. Our micromorphological analysis of the soft till provides the first widespread sedimentological evidence of deformation across the palaeo-ice stream bed on the NE Antarctic Peninsula shelf.
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