East Antarctic glacial history through microfossil analyses of the Pagodroma Group

Exposures of these glacigene deposits suggest deposition by an ice sheet of quite different character than the present ice sheet, and a glacial regime that included significant erosion, transportation and deposition. In situ marine macrofossils and microfossils within formations of the Pagodroma Group indicate that this warmer than present climate regime, and polythermal character of the East Antarctic ice sheet continued through the late Miocene and into the Pliocene.

The floating ice margin retreated up the Lambert Valley by as much as 300 km south of its present grounded limit, where distal glacimarine facies deposited diatomaceous muds of the Battye Glacier (late Miocene) and Bardin Bluffs (Pliocene) formations. The grounding zone of the paleo-Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf system fluctuated across a distance greater than 600 km during the Neogene, from a position on the continental shelf edge in Prydz Bay to the inner reaches of the Lambert/Amery Embayment.

Further information can be found in the following published references (see Reference Section at the bottom of the page).