Pleistocene Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

Some glacial sediment samples recovered from beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet at ice stream B contain Quaternary diatoms and up to 108 atoms of beryllium-10 per gram. Other samples contain no Quaternary diatoms and only background levels of beryllium-10 (less than 10^6 atoms per gram). The occur...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
Main Authors: Scherer, Reed P., Aldahan, Ala, Tulaczyk, Slawek, Possnert, Göran, Engelhardt, Hermann, Kamb, Barclay
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science 1998
Subjects:
Antarctic
West Antarctic Ice Sheet
Antarc*
Ice Sheet
Ice Stream B
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1126/science.281.5373.82
Description
Summary:Some glacial sediment samples recovered from beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet at ice stream B contain Quaternary diatoms and up to 108 atoms of beryllium-10 per gram. Other samples contain no Quaternary diatoms and only background levels of beryllium-10 (less than 10^6 atoms per gram). The occurrence of young diatoms and high concentrations of beryllium-10 beneath grounded ice indicates that the Ross Embayment was an open marine environment after a late Pleistocene collapse of the marine ice sheet. © 1998 American Association for the Advancement of Science. 14 April 1998; accepted 14 May 1998. Support for this study came from Uppsala University, the Swedish Natural Sciences Research Council, and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation to R. P. S., A. A. and G. P., and from a U. S. NSF grant OPP9319018 to B. K. and H. E.

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