Landscape evolution in the southern Transantarctic Mountains during the early Miocene (c. 20–17 Ma) and evidence for a highly dynamic East Antarctic Ice Sheet margin from the southernmost volcanoes in the world (87°S)

Abstract

Observations of ice sheet stability in Antarctica in the past, during significantly warmer climatic periods than today, are hampered by a paucity of continental outcrops but they are essential if we are to test and more fully understand established concepts of ice sheet growth and decay and robustly predict Earth's future during rapid global warming. In this paper we use the unique terrestrial record preserved in the three most southerly volcanoes on Earth to reconstruct Antarctica's environmental landscape in the Transantarctic Mountains for three time slices (at 20.1, 19.31 and c. 17 Ma). We demonstrate that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet margin was highly dynamic and fluctuated greatly during the Early Miocene. The period included a much-reduced ice cover that left the southern Transantarctic Mountains virtually ice-free, although a few tidewater glaciers reached the shores of the Early Miocene Ross Sea (Sheridan Bluff; 20.1 Ma); and a substantially thicker, much more voluminous ice mass (represented by volcanism at Mount Early; 19.31 Ma). An intermediate stage of ice retreat is also indicated (at c. 17 Ma), when the East Antarctic Ice Sheet had again withdrawn to behind the Transantarctic Mountains. It is represented by a subglacial volcanic centre identified remotely by aerogeophysics and sampled only as glacial erratics. The associated ice cover at c. 17 Ma had a relatively low surface elevation but it was confluent with thin ice domes that covered the adjacent mountains. Although the ice margin probably did not extend down to the Ross Sea coast, several glaciers fed icebergs into the Ross Sea. The large ice sheet indicated by the Mount Early volcanic centre is the only known physical record of a significant glacial event that took place at 19.31 ± 0.32 Ma (‘Mount Early glacial’). The records examined at the other two volcanic sites correspond to eruptions during periods of substantially reduced ice in Antarctica, of which that at 20.1 ± 0.4 Ma is the most remarkable (‘Sheridan Bluff interglacial’). The causes of the extreme variations in ice sheet thickness and extent indicated are uncertain but they occurred during a period of rapidly fluctuating atmospheric CO2 compositions. Although Milankovitch astronomical forcing probably also played a significant part, the results suggest that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet was highly susceptible to comparatively slight changes in CO2 during the warm Early Miocene.