Sedimentation processes on the Antarctic continental margin at Kapp Norvegia during the Late Pleistocene

• Published in: Geologische Rundschau
• Main Author: Grobe, Hannes
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 1986
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Weddell; Weddell Sea; Antarc*; Ice Shelf
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/1069/; https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/1069/1/Gro1986a.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01770181; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.11656; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.11656.d001

Sedimentological analyses concerning ice rafted debris, grain size distribution, biogeneous components, and clay mineral composition of four sediment cores from the Antarctic continental margin off Kapp Norvegia reveal a cyclical pattern of three different sediment facies. These are classified into warm and cold types, representing warm and cold climatic periods and a short transition period from cold to warm events.The sedimentological parameters reflect the variations with the cryosphere and the hydrosphere, which are directly influenced by the climatic fluctuations. The unusually high content of carbonaceous planktonic and benthonic foraminifera in these polar sediments, as well as the interfingering of terrigeneous and biogeneous-rich sediments with increasing distance from the continent, might reflect the influence of the Weddell Sea Polynya and the oscillations of polynya, pack ice and ice shelf extent during the late Pleistocene.