XRF-Derived Cyclicity in Pliocene and Pleistocene Sediments from ODP Site 693, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica

• Other Authors: Hall, James Tyler, O'Connell, Suzanne
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: Antarctic; Dronning Maud Land; East Antarctic Ice Sheet; Pollard; Weddell; Weddell Sea; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://digitalcollections.wesleyan.edu/object/ir-712; https://doi.org/10.14418/wes01.1.1147; https://digitalcollections.wesleyan.edu/sites/default/files/2023-03/23337-Thumbnail%20Image.png

Anthropogenic climate change poses great challenges and existential questions to humankind. Communities must be made resilient to the inevitable destructive effects that we are sure to see in the coming decades, and our interactions with the complex, interconnected ecosystems in which we participate need to be restructured in hopes of mitigating continued adverse consequences. The Pliocene epoch is, in many ways, a climatic analogue to our current world. Atmospheric CO2 levels exceeded 400 ppm during the mid-Pliocene warm period (Haywood et al., 2009), a level that was surpassed in May of 2013 (Blunden, 2014). Therefore, the epoch can shed light on the consequences of current climate change. The Pleistocene epoch, following the Pliocene epoch, is characterized by cycles of Antarctic and Northern Hemispheric glaciation (Pollard and DeConto, 2009), thereby providing important information on the factors necessary in inducing and reducing polar glacial conditions. The stability of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) is now an area of study experiencing much contention and is one of the focal points of this study. Holding ~26.5 million km3 of ice, the EAIS has the potential to raise global sea levels tens of meter (Gross, 2014). While previously thought to have remained stable during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs, it now seems conceivable that the EAIS coastline experienced significant glacial retreat throughout the late Pliocene as well as the early Pleistocene (Raymo et al., 2006, Cook et al., 2013). Understanding the mechanisms involved in creating the stability of Antarctic ice sheets during these epochs will allow us to more properly estimate the level of deglaciation that we can expect to see as a result of anthropogenic climate change. This will aid in estimating the magnitude of sea level rise that the world will experience, thereby providing coastal communities with information to prepare appropriately. Using X-ray fluorescence data from deep-sea sediment cores recovered from the Weddell Sea off the ...