Environmental controls on sediment composition and particle fluxes over the Antarctic continental shelf

• Main Author: Isla, Enrique
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Cambridge University Press 2016
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Weddell; Weddell Sea; West Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/135138; https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107705791.017

14 pages, 7 figures The Antarctic continental shelf, covering approximately 4 • 106km2, has unique morphologic andtopographic characteristics shaped by its polar climate setting (Jacobs, 1989; Anderson and Thomas, 1991). The isostatic depression of the Antarctic continent by the ice sheet over it and the erosive glacial advance toward the sea has made the surrounding continental shelf broader and deeper than elsewhere. On average it has 500 m depth, whereas in the rest of the world it is 130 m depth; in some regions of West Antarctica this oceanic province can be up to 300 km wide such as in the western Weddell Sea, whereas the eastern section averages 100 km between 60ºE and 170ºE and about 60 km between 60ºE and 35ºW (Anderson, 1991, 1999). Typically, the continental shelf shows a fore deepened cross-shelf profile where the shallowest point is on the shelf break with water depths commonly exceeding 1,000 m on the inner shelf as a consequence of the aforementioned glacial processes (Anderson and Thomas, 1991) Peer Reviewed