Description: The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is considered the most unstable part of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. As the WAIS is mostly grounded below sea level, its stability is of great concern. A collapse of large parts of the WAIS would result in a significant global sea-level rise. At present, the WAIS shows dramatic ice loss in its Amundsen Sea sector, especially in Pine Island Bay. Pine Island Glacier (PIG) is characterised by fast flow, major thinning and rapid grounding-line retreat. Its mass los over recent decades is generally attributed to melting caused by the inflow of warm Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW). Future melting of PIG may result in a sea level tipping point, because it could trigger widespread collapse of the WAIS, especially when considering ongoing climate change. Our research project aims to establish proxies (integration of foraminifera, sediment properties and oceanographic data) for modern environmental conditions by analysing seafloor surface sediments along a transect from the glacier proximal settings to the middle-outer shelf in the eastern Amundsen Sea Embayment. These proxies will then be applied on sediment records spanning the Holocene back to the Last Glacial Maximum for reconstructing spatial and temporal variations of CDW upwelling and ice-ocean interactions during the past c. 23,000 years. We will present preliminary results from the analyses of ten short marine sediment cores (multi and box cores) collected during expeditions JR179 (2008) and ANT-XXVI/3 (2010) along a transect from inner Pine Island Bay to the middle-outer shelf part of the Abbot Palaeo-Ice Stream Trough at water depths ranging from 458 m (middle shelf) to 1444 m (inner shelf). The sediment cores are currently investigated for distribution patterns of planktonic and benthic foraminifera and grain-size distribution at 1 cm resolution. Core tops (0-10 cm) were stained with Rose Bengal for living benthic foraminifera investigations. The chronology of the cores will be based on 210Pb and calibrated 14C dates. First results reveal the presence of living benthic foraminifera in surface sediments of all investigated cores suggesting that modern seabed surfaces were recovered. Moreover, a core retrieved from a water depth of 793 m in the Abbot Palaeo-Ice Stream Trough shows particularly high abundances of planktonic foraminifera Neogloboquadrina pachyderma.

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.