The West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat in Pine Island Bay, Amundsen Sea, Antarctica, as documented by clay mineral assemblages

The study aims in improving our understanding of the deglaciation history of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet after the last glacial maximum. It builds on ongoing self-financed investigations in Bellingshausen Sea and concentrates on the continental shelf of Pine Island Bay in Amundsen Sea. This region is extremely important, because it is located offshore from Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier, which exhibit the most rapid ice thinning and grounding line retreat in present-day Antarctica. Mainly sediments from the continental shelf, but also from a few sites at the continental slope will be investigated for their clay mineral assemblages. Surface samples will be investigated to map the distribution of the individual clay minerals in order to identify different clay mineral provinces, source areas and present transport pathways and processes. Core samples will be investigated to decipher temporal and spatial changes in the clay mineralogical signature in order to reconstruct the maximum glacial extent of the ice sheet and glaciers, the ice flow directions, the subglacial and gravitational depositional processes and the retreat history of the ice sheet. The proposed investigation is linked to comprehensive research activities at British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge and at Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, which comprise the full range of geophysical, sedimentological, geochemical, stratigraphical and palaeontological studies.

Scientists

Werner Ehrmann
Institut für Geophysik und Geologie
Universität Leipzig

in cooperation with
Dr. Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK
Dr. Rob Larter, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK
Dr. James Smith, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK
Dr. Alastair Graham, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK
Dr. Gerhard Kuhn, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, D
Dr. Karsten Gohl, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, D

Research areas

Pine Island Bay, Amundsen Sea, Antarctica

Publications

Ehrmann W, Hillenbrand CD, Smith JA, Graham AGC, Kuhn G, Larter RD, (in press). Provenance changes between recent and glacial-time sediments in the Amundsen Sea Embayment, West Antarctica: clay mineral assemblage evidence. Antarctic Science; doi:10.1017/S0954102011000320

Smith JA, Hillenbrand CD, Kuhn G, Larter RD, Graham AGC, Ehrmann W, Moreton SG, Forwick G, 2011. Deglacial history of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in the western Amundsen Sea Embayment. Quaternary Science Reviews 30, 488-505.

Franke D, Ehrmann W, 2010. Neogene clay mineral assemblages in the AND-2A drill core (McMurdo Sound, Antarctica) and their implications for environmental change. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 286, 55-65.

Hillenbrand CD, Larter RD, Dowdeswell JA, Ehrmann W, Ó Cofaigh C, Benetti S, Graham AGC, Grobe H, 2010. The sedimentary legacy of a palaeo-ice stream on the shelf of the southern Bellingshausen Sea: Clues to West Antarctic glacial history during the Late Quaternary. Quaternary Science Reviews 29, 2741-2763.

Hillenbrand CD, Ehrmann W, Larter RD, Benetti S, Dowdeswell JA, Ó Cofaigh C, Graham AGC, Grobe H, 2009. Clay mineral provenance of sediments in the southern Bellingshausen Sea reveals drainage changes of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet during the Late Quaternary. Marine Geology 265, 1-18.

Krueger S, Leuschner DC, Ehrmann W, Schmiedl G, Mackensen A, Diekmann B, 2008. Oceanic circulation patterns and dust supply into the South Atlantic during the last glacial cycle revealed by statistical analysis of kaolinite/chlorite ratios. Marine Geology 253, 82-91.

Bart PJ, Hillenbrand CD, Ehrmann W, Iwai M, Winter D, Warny SA, 2007. Are Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet grounding events manifest in sedimentary cycles on the adjacent continental rise? Marine Geology 236, 1-13.

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Research funding organisation

German Research Foundation

Project number: EH 89/10
Funding period: 1/2007 - 6/2010