Abstract
During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the ice masses covering the western side of the northernmost Antarctic Peninsula (NAP) drained into Bransfield Basin (BB) (Banfield & Anderson 1995). A drainage-basin area of about 60 000 km2 generated an ice flux that entrained significant volumes of englacial and subglacial debris that were subsequently delivered into BB. Multibeam-bathymetric data show a number of deeply sculpted, sub-parallel glacial cross-shelf troughs and associated landforms within the framework of an entire glacial depositional system (Canals et al. 2002; Garcia et al. 2011). Bransfield Basin is a 35 000 km2, SW–NE-orientated marginal basin situated between the South Shetland Islands (SSI) and the NAP and adjacent islands (Fig. 1a). BB consists of three sub-basins, the main one being the 1950 m deep Central Bransfield Basin (CBB) which is 215 km long and 120 km wide. The NAP margin of the CBB hosts several cross-shelf troughs opening into a sedimentary outer shelf (Fig. 1b) including Mott Snowfield, Laclavere and Lafond troughs (Canals et al. 2002). Fig. 1. ( a ) Location of study area (red box; map from IBCSO v. 1.0). SSI, South Shetland Islands; BB, Bransfield Basin. ( b ) Swath-bathymetric image of Central Bransfield Basin (CBB). Acquisition system Simrad EM12-S. Frequency 12.5 kHz. Grid-cell size 200 m (colour) and GEBCO_08 Grid (grey). Land area …
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