The grounding-zone wedge inventory on the Amundsen Sea Embayment shelf, West Antarctica: formation processes and significance for establishing reliable post-LGM retreat chronologies

Grounding-zone wedges (GZW) have been mapped on many of the formerly glaciated continental shelves around Antarctica. These GZWs record periods of grounding-line (GL) stillstand during general ice-sheet retreat following the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; 26-19 ka BP; kiloyears before present). The pres...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Klages, Johann Philipp, Kuhn, Gerhard, Hillenbrand, Claus-Dieter, Smith, James A., Graham, Alastair G. C., Gohl, Karsten, Wacker, Lukas
Format: Conference Object
Language:unknown
Published: 2015
Subjects:
West Antarctica
Amundsen Sea
Antarc*
Antarctica
Ice Sheet
Online Access:https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/39349/
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/39349/1/Poster.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.46573
https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.46573.d001
Description
Summary:Grounding-zone wedges (GZW) have been mapped on many of the formerly glaciated continental shelves around Antarctica. These GZWs record periods of grounding-line (GL) stillstand during general ice-sheet retreat following the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; 26-19 ka BP; kiloyears before present). The presence of GZWs along the axis of a palaeo-ice stream trough therefore indicates a style of episodic GL retreat during the migration from its initial position at the LGM to its modern position. However, precise chronological constraints for both the onset and duration of these stillstands are still lacking. Consequently, the role of GZW formation in modulating post-LGM ice-sheet retreat, and therefore ice-sheet stability cannot be reliably quantified. Additionally, this information is also vital for calculating reliable retreat rates during the past, which are essential for evaluating and understanding the significance of modern, locally very high retreat rates of glaciers draining into the Amundsen Sea Embayment.

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