Integrating terrestrial and marine sediment records from East Antarctica to explore late Pleistocene and Holocene ice sheet instability

• Applicant: Dr. Sonja Berg
• Subject Area: Geology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 463250038

Within the proposed project we want to study ice-ocean-climate interactions that potentially affected the stability of the East Antarctic Ice sheet from the late Pleistocene until present day. We select a multi-proxy approach to integrate evidence from terrestrial, lacustrine and marine sedimentary archives. Additionally, mumiyo deposits are used as archives to close the gap between the ice-proximal lacustrine and terrestrial and ice-distal open-marine archives. Three target regions were defined to exemplarily study different processes of ice-ocean-climate interaction: Central Dronning Maud Land and the adjacent ocean, Mawson Coast, part of the Mac. Robertson Land, and Thala Hills, an un-glaciated coastal site at Prince Olav Coast, Enderby Land.Reconstructions in the respective regions will include the temporal development of post-glacial ice retreat and the prevailing climatic conditions. Furthermore, biomarker and stable isotope analyses on marine sediments and mumiyo will be used to study the temporal variability of sea ice extent and polynya activity. Both parameters influence energy and gas exchange between atmosphere and ocean and ocean circulation, which interact with the ice sheet and ultimately affect ice sheet stability.

• DFG Programme: Infrastructure Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1158: Infrastructure area - Antarctic Research with Comparative Investigations in Arctic Sea Ice Areas