The development of antarctic glaciation and the Neogene paleoenvironment of the Maurice Ewing Bank

• Published in: Marine Geology
• Main Authors: Ciesielski, Paul F., Ledbetter, Michael T., Ellwood, Brooks B.
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: LSU Digital Commons 1982
• Subjects: Antarctic; Southern Ocean; The Antarctic; West Antarctic Ice Sheet; Weddell; Maurice; Ewing; Maurice Ewing Bank; Antarc*; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf; Ice Shelves
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/geo_pubs/850; https://doi.org/10.1016/0025-3227(82)90150-5

A micropaleontologic, magnetostratigraphic, and sedimentologic analysis of 56 piston cores provides the basis of a geologic study of the late Miocene to Holocene depositional and erosional history of the intermediate-depth Maurice Ewing Bank (MEB) located at the eastern extremity of the Falkland (Malvinas) Plateau, southwest Atlantic Ocean. Sedimentation on the MEB is controlled presently by the position of the Polar Front and strong bottom currents beneath the axis of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). Fluctuations in the position of the Polar Front and in the intensity of the ACC are inferred to have largely controlled deposition on the MEB since the initiation of ACC flow over the bank in the Miocene. The sedimentary record of the MEB is used to infer the late Miocene to Holocene oceanographic and climatic conditions in the South Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. The MEB suffered major erosion by intense ACC flow during late Miocene time which exposed Cretaceous-Miocene sediment near the surface and shaped the present configuration of the bank. This erosional event is inferred to have occurred during late Miocene to early Pliocene time (∼7.2-4.7 m.y.B.P.) with the major phase of erosion occurring between middle magnetostratigraphic Chron 7 and late Chron 6 (∼7.2-6.2 m.y.B.P.). We suggest that the Miocene sedimentary record of the MEB and other paleoenvironmental evidence from the circum-Antarctic region precludes the existence of a West Antarctic ice sheet or extensive ice shelves along the Antarctic margin prior to the late Miocene. During the late Miocene a West Antarctic ice shelf formed in the former West Antarctic Sea and rapidly thickened until it grounded below sea level to form the West Antarctic ice sheet. Formation of this ice sheet, with floating and partially grounded extensions (ice shelves) in the Ross and Weddell embayments, led to the first major production of true Antarctic Bottom Water (formed in a manner similar to today) which permanently altered global abyssal circulation. Late ...