Evidence for a Former Large Ice Sheet in the Orville Coast–Ronne Ice Shelf Area, Antarctica

• Published in: Journal of Glaciology
• Main Author: Carrara, Paul
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1981
• Subjects: Earth-Surface Processes; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Ross Sea; Ronne Ice Shelf; Orville; Orville Coast; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf; Journal of Glaciology; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022143000011527; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022143000011527

Abstract The Orville Coast area of the Antarctic Peninsula was extensively glacierized in the past. Striations, polished rock surfaces, and erratics on nunatak summits indicate that this area was covered by a broad regional ice sheet whose grounded ice margin was on the continental shelf, in the present-day Ronne Ice Shelf area. If the glacial history of Antarctica has been controlled by eustatic sea-level changes, the destruction of this ice sheet would have been contemporaneous with that of the Ross Sea ice sheet due to the world-wide rise of eustatic sea-level at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation.