| Summary: | We use all available chronostratigraphic constraints - biostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy, radioisotopic dates, strontium-isotope stratigraphy, and correlation of compositional and physical properties to well-dated global or regional records - to construct a preliminary age model for ANDRILL SMS Project's AND-2A drillcore (77°45.488'S, 165°16.605'E, 383.57 m water depth). These diverse chronostratigraphic constraints are consistent with each other and are distributed throughout the 1138.54 m-thick section, resulting in a well-constrained age model. The sedimentary succession comprises a thick early and middle Miocene section below 224.82 mbsf and a condensed middle/late Miocene to Recent section above this. The youngest sediments are Brunhes age (<0.781 Ma), as confirmed by a radioisotopic age of 0.691±0.049 Ma at 10.23 mbsf and the occurrence of sediments that have normal magnetic polarity down to 7sim;31.1 mbsf, which is interpreted to be the Brunhes/Matuyama reversal (0.781 Ma). The upper section is punctuated by disconformities resulting from both discontinuous deposition and periods of extensive erosion typical of sedimentary environments at the margin of a dynamic ice sheet. Additional breaks in the section may be due to the influence of tectonic processes. The age model incorporates several major hiatuses but their precise depths are still somewhat uncertain, as there are a large number of erosional surfaces identified within the stratigraphie section. One or more hiatuses, which represent a total 7 to 8 million years of time missing from the sedimentary record, occur between about 50 mbsf and the base of Lithostratigraphic Unit (LSU) 3 at 122.86 mbsf. Similarly, between about 145 mbsf and the base of LSU 4 at 224.82 mbsf, one or more hiatuses occur on which another 2 to 3 million years of the sedimentary record is missing. Support for the presence of these hiatuses comes from a diatom assemblage that constrains the age of the core from 44 to 50 mbsf to 2.06-2.84 Ma, two radioisotopic dates (11.4 Ma) ...
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