Bathymetry data and water column profiles in the shallow waters of Langhovde in Lützow-Holm Bay, East Antarctica

• Published in: Polar Science
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Bathymetry; Water column profile; Lützow-holm bay; East Antarctica; Antarctic; Langhovde; Lützow-Holm Bay; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet; Polar Science
• Online Access: https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=16488; http://id.nii.ac.jp/1291/00016359/

The sediments of shallow marine waters and lakes around Antarctica provide valuable records of sea-level changes. Understanding the timing and amplitude of Antarctic Ice Sheet changes during the last deglaciation is essential to assess the effect of glacial isostatic adjustments on the present ice-sheet mass balance. However, the difficulty in accessing Antarctica makes it challenging to obtain field-based evidence of ice-sheet and sea-level change during the last deglaciation. We used a portable sonar system to measure bathymetry and water column profiles (sea temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity) in Lake Nurume and shallow marine waters of Langhovde, East Antarctica, to collect baseline data for sea-level reconstruction from the Last Glacial Maximum (~20 ka). The bathymetry data reveals the surveyed shallow marine waters of Langhovde have basins of 100 m water depth with approximately −67 and −92 m sills, in which sediments provide a potentially useful sea-level archive for the last deglaciation. The water column profile in Lake Nurume reveals a chemocline at ~11 m water depth and anoxic condition below that depth. These baseline data will be useful to reconstruct sea-level and ice-sheet changes in East Antarctica.