Sequence Stratigraphy, Chronostratigraphy and Zircon Geochronology of the CIROS-1 Drill Core, Ross Sea, Antarctica: Implications for Cenozoic Glacial and Tectonic Evolution

• Main Author: Van de Ven, Evelien
• Other Authors: Naish, Tim, Baker, Joel
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Victoria University of Wellington 2010
• Subjects: CIROS-1; Antarctica; ANDRILL; Antarctic; East Antarctic Ice Sheet; Ferrar Glacier; McMurdo Sound; Ross Sea; The Antarctic; Victoria Land; Antarc*; Ice Sheet; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/handle/10063/2125

Antarctica plays a central role in the global climate system. Understanding the continent's past climate interactions is key to predicting its future response to, and influence on, global climate change. In recent decades, sediment cores drilled on the Antarctic continental margin have provided direct evidence of past climatic and tectonic events. Drilled in 1986 from sea ice in western McMurdo Sound, the pioneering 702 m-long CIROS-1 core extended back to the Late Eocene and provided some of the first evidence of the antiquity and history of the Antarctic ice sheets. The CIROS-1 drill core recovered a depositional history of the western margin of the Victoria Land Basin adjacent to the Trans-Antarctic Mountains. It was located directly offshore from where the Ferrar Glacier, which drains the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, discharges into the Ross Sea. Consequently CIROS-1 contains a record of both the glacial and tectonic Cenozoic evolution of the Antarctic margin. This thesis provides a timely re-evaluation of the CIROS-1 core with new analysis techniques that enable further insights into the glacial and tectonic history of the western Ross Sea region, and includes three key objectives: (1) Re-examine CIROS-1 sedimentology and stratigraphy and provide a new facies and sequence stratigraphic analysis using modern methods developed from recent drilling projects (e.g. CRP, ANDRILL). (2) Develop a new integrated chronostratigraphic model through an assessment and compilation of previous studies, which provides a context for the interpretation of detrital zircon data, climate and tectonic history. (3) Undertake a detailed examination of the provenance of CIROS-1 sediments using cutting edge in situ analysis techniques of detrital zircons (U-Pb and trace element analysis using LA-ICP-MS). Glaciomarine sequence stratigraphic analysis identifies 14 unconformity-bound sequences occurring in two distinctive stratigraphic motifs. The four sequences located beneath the 342 mbsf unconformity contain relatively complete vertical ...