Robert D Larter

Effects of ridge crest-trench interaction on Antarctic-Phoenix Spreading: Forces on a young subducting plate

Precise measurements of spreading rates on marine magnetic profiles collected to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula have enabled some consideration of the forces governing plate motion, since Antarctic—Phoenix motion has been controlled by the local rather than global force balance over the last 35 m.y. The total effective driving force per unit length of trench is calculated to have ranged between 2.6 and 3.6×1012 N/m, which is much less than is commonly thought necessary to support subduction. Conventional calculations may overestimate slab pull for old slabs because they neglect the effect of extensional disruption in limiting the contribution to the balance of forces at the trench. The low estimate of driving forces obtained here implies that resistive forces are also smaller than is generally assumed. Driving forces show a strong correlation with observed spreading rates, which indicates that resistive forces were largely velocity dependent. Fluid migration up the subduction zone may elevate temperatures in and around the shear zone, reducing resistive forces below the levels required by purely conductive models. Changes in convergence rate may affect the depths of both the brittle/ductile deformation boundary and the basalt/eclogite phase change, causing a negative feedback which would appear as a velocity-dependent resistive force. The different driving forces acting on the NE and SW parts of the Phoenix plate, as a consequence of older oceanic lithosphere at the trench in the NE, caused Antarctic–Phoenix spreading to take place about a near pole to the SW since 21 m.y. ago, and ultimately resulted in disruption of the Phoenix plate about 9 m.y. ago. Spreading rates decreased abruptly about 6 m.y. ago, probably because of E-W compression across the long transform faults bounding the Phoenix plate. However, spreading on the last three segments of the Antarctic–Phoenix Ridge continued at least until 4 m.y. ago. Either spreading stopped progressively from SW to NE, or the final stage took place about a very near pole to the SW. A magnetic quiet zone extends up to 95 km from the margin between the Tula Fracture Zone and the North Anvers Fracture Zone, and is thought to indicate that the ridge crest became buried by terrigenous sediment prior to collision. The absence of a magnetic quiet zone associated with the most recent ridge crest–trench collisions suggests a change in sedimentary regime during the late Miocene. Anomalously fast apparent spreading rates between 23 and 21 m.y. ago are thought to indicate an error in this part of the magnetic reversal time scale.

Ice sheet retreat from the Antarctic Peninsula shelf

Side-scan sonar and sub-bottom acoustic profiler data and sediment cores reveal the processes that controlled sediment transport and deposition on the continental shelf of the Antarctic Peninsula Pacific margin off Anvers Island, during deglaciation over the last 11,000 years or more. Glacial flutes and striations mark the flow of low-profile ice streams draining the interior, across the middle and outer shelf. Most probably, ice sheets were grounded to the continental shelf edge along this margin during the last glacial maximum. Iceberg furrows overwrite the ice sheet record in areas between 500 and 350 m water depth, and reflect calving from a retreating ice shelf front. Cores show open marine sedimentation replacing diamicton deposition close to the grounding line during this retreat, which rapidly cleared the outer and middle shelf shortly before 11,000 years BP (from AMS14C dates on organic carbon). The shallower, scoured and largely sediment-free inner shelf cleared later, probably before 6000 years BP. Open marine sediments on the middle and outer shelf include a pelagic biogenic component and suspended sediment from modern glacier tongues, supplemented by resuspension of older sediment in shallow shelf regions (by currents and by grounded icebergs). Sedimentation is too slow to be able to fill in the concave-up profile of the continental shelf during a full interglacial, confirming the intense glacial-interglacial cyclicity of sedimentation on the continental slope inferred from seismic reflection profiles. The observed rapid deglaciation of the middle and outer shelf supports published numerical model results that the Antarctic Peninsulas narrow interior and broad continental shelf make the ice sheet sensitive to imposed eustatic sea-level change. A low-profile marine-based ice sheet over the continental shelf during glacial maximum would have made a major contribution to that sensitivity, in the early stages of deglaciation. It follows that the Antarctic Peninsula ice sheet, and probably most others, are not so sensitive today.

The Discovery of New Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vent Communities in the Southern Ocean and Implications for Biogeography

A survey of Antarctic waters along the East Scotia Ridge in the Southern Ocean reveals a new vent biogeographic province among previously uncharacterized deep-sea hydrothermal vent communities.

Tectonic evolution of the Pacific margin of Antarctica - 1. Late Cretaceous tectonic reconstructions

We present new Late Cretaceous tectonic reconstructions of the Pacific margin of Antarctica based on constraints from marine magnetic data and regional free-air gravity fields. Results from interpretation of new seismic reflection and gravity profiles collected in the Bellingshausen Sea are also incorporated in the reconstructions. The reconstructions show regional constraints on tectonic evolution of the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas following the breakup between New Zealand and West Antarctica. The breakup began at c. 90 Ma with the separation of Chatham Rise, probably accompanied by the opening of the Bounty Trough. Campbell Plateau separated from West Antarctica later, during chron 33r (83.0-79.1 Ma). A free-air gravity lineation northeast of Chatham Rise represents the trace of a triple junction that formed as a result of fragmentation of the Phoenix plate a few million years before Chatham Rise separated from West Antarctica. Remnants of the western fragment, the Charcot plate, are preserved in the Bellingshausen Sea. Subduction of the Charcot plate stopped before 83 Ma, and part of it became coupled to the Antarctic Peninsula across the stalled subduction zone. Subsequent convergence at the western margin of this captured ocean floor produced the structures that are the main cause of the Bellingshausen gravity anomaly. Part of a spreading ridge at the western boundary of the Phoenix plate (initially Charcot-Phoenix, evolving into Marie Byrd Land-Phoenix, and eventually Bellingshausen-Phoenix (BEL-PHO)) probably subducted obliquely beneath the southern Antarctic Peninsula during the Late Cretaceous. All of the Phoenix plate ocean floor subducted at the Antarctic Peninsula margin during the Late Cretaceous was probably <14 Myr old when it reached the trench. Several observations suggest that independent Bellingshausen plate motion began near the end of chron 33n (73.6 Ma). Reconstructions in which part of the West Antarctic continental margin, including Thurston Island, is assumed to have been within the Bellingshausen plate seem more plausible than ones in which the plate is assumed to have been entirely oceanic.

Bathymetry of the Amundsen Sea continental shelf: Implications for geology, oceanography, and glaciology

The Amundsen Sea continental shelf is one of the most remote areas of coastal Antarctica and was relatively unexplored until the late 1980s. Over the last two decades, increased oceanographic and geological interest has led to several cruises that resulted in sufficient bathymetric data to compile a fairly detailed regional map of the Amundsen continental shelf. We have combined available multibeam and single-beam bathymetry data from various sources and created a new regional bathymetry of the Amundsen Sea continental shelf and margin. Deep trough systems that dominate the inner shelf are aligned with present glaciers and separated by shallower ridges. Shaped by paleo-ice streams, these features merge into a small number of broader troughs on the middle shelf and shoal seaward. They now serve as conduits and reservoirs for relatively warm Circumpolar Deep Water. This new compilation is a major improvement over previously available regional maps and should aid the numerical modeling of ocean circulation, the reconstructions of paleo-ice streams, and the refinement of ice sheet models.

Seismic stratigraphy of the Antarctic Peninsula Pacific margin: A record of Pliocene-Pleistocene ice volume and paleoclimate

Multichannel seismic profiles across the Pacific margin of the Antarctic Peninsula show a series of oblique progradational sequences. These sequences exhibit a variety of unusual characteristics that suggest they were produced by the action of ice sheets grounded out to the shelf edge at times of glacial maximum. Reflection events from deeper stratigraphic levels, followed down the continental slope and onto the rise, overlie ocean crust of known age, showing that at least eight such glacial sequences have been deposited within the past 6 m.y. Similar groundings have probably occurred on most Antarctic margins, but the depositional record is particularly well preserved at this margin because of Pliocene-Pleistocene thermal subsidence. Neogene global sea-level fluctuations have been attributed to changes in volume of continental ice sheets. The depositional sequences on the Pacific margin of the Antarctic Peninsula are thought to record West Antarctic ice-sheet fluctuations directly. Further investigation of these sequences would assess the relation between fluctuations in ice volume and the low-latitude record of global sea-level change.

Giant sediment drifts on the continental rise west of the Antarctic Peninsula

Multichannel seismic reflection profiles from the continental rise west of the Antarctic Peninsula between 63° and 69°S show the growth of eight very large mound-shaped sedimentary bodies. MCS profiles and long-range side-scan sonar (GLORIA) images show the sea floor between mounds is traversed by channels originating in a dendritic pattern near the base of the continental slope. The mounds are interpreted as sediment drifts, constructed mainly from the fine-grained components of turbidity currents originating on the continental slope, entrained in a nepheloid layer within the ambient southwesterly bottom currents and redeposited downcurrent.

LIFE HUNG BY A THREAD: ENDURANCE OF ANTARCTIC FAUNA IN GLACIAL PERIODS

Today, Antarctica exhibits some of the harshest environmental conditions for life on Earth. During the last glacial period, Antarctic terrestrial and marine life was challenged by even more extreme environmental conditions. During the present interglacial period, polar life in the Southern Ocean is sustained mainly by large-scale primary production. We argue that during the last glacial period, faunal populations in the Antarctic were limited to very few areas of local marine productivity (polynyas), because complete, multiannual sea-ice and ice shelf coverage shut down most of the Southern Ocean productivity within todays seasonal sea-ice zone. Both marine sediments containing significant numbers of planktonic and benthic foraminifera and fossil bird stomach oil deposits in the adjacent Antarctic hinterland provide indirect evidence for the existence of polynyas during the last glacial period. We advocate that the existence of productive oases in the form of polynyas during glacial periods was essential for the survival of marine and most higher-trophic terrestrial fauna. Reduced to such refuges, much of todays life in the high Antarctic realm might have hung by a thread during the last glacial period, because limited resources available to the food web restricted the abundance and productivity of both Antarctic terrestrial and marine life.

The depositional pattern and distribution of glacial-interglacial sequences on the Antarctic Peninsula Pacific margin

The outer shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula Pacific margin south of 63°30′S is underlain by Pliocene-Pleistocene prograding sequences which have been produced mainly by the action of ice sheets grounded out to the shelf edge at times of glacial maximum. Most sediment in these sequences has probably been transported to the margin in a deforming basal till, which implies deposition on a broad front: a “line source”. A representative prograding sequence mapped across an extensive network of multichannel seismic reflection lines has an elongate depocentre on the upper palaeoslope, which is consistent with the grounded ice sheet model. However, it is likely that each sequence recognized on existing multichannel seismic data represents several ice advances. Depth-to-surface maps reveal a broad variation along the margin in the amount of progradation, reflecting differences in sediment supply. The pattern of progradation and the bathymetry of the outer shelf suggest that the main depocentre in the area studied was fed by an ice stream at times of glacial maximum. Seismic lines across the margin farther to the southwest indicate the existence of other depocentres. Several broad depositional lobes have probably coalesced to form the extensive outer shelf. The present continental slope is smooth and steep, and is not cut by major canyons. A downslope change in seismic facies and scouring on the uppermost rise probably reflect downslope transitions from slumps to debris flows to turbidity currents. These processes are likely to be most active at times of glacial maximum. Deep drilling data indicate that the rise sediments consist mainly of terrigenous turbidite and ice-rafted detritus. A marked upward change in seismic facies on the continental rise indicates a change to a higher energy sedimentary regime and appears to correlate with the start of glacial progradation on the shelf.

Relict subglacial deltas on the Antarctic Peninsula outer shelf

The first deep-tow boomer survey on the Antarctic continental margin has revealed relict subglacial deltas on the outer continental shelf off the Antarctic Peninsula. Progradation of subglacial deltas is thought to take place at the grounding lines of ice streams which flow on deforming subglacial till. Acoustic characteristics and estimation of likely sediment transport rates suggest that these features were produced by late-stage readvance of grounding lines during the waning of the last ice sheet that covered the shelf. This readvance could have taken place during the Younger Dryas (12.9–11.6 ka), but changes in sea level and climate may not be the only important controls on subglacial delta formation. The discovery of relict subglacial deltas on the outer shelf is consistent with the hypothesis that the grounded ice sheet in these areas was low profile and fast flowing. If low-profile grounded ice extended to the shelf edge in many places around Antarctica at times of glacial maximum, this could explain the greater glacial maximum ice-sheet extent in interpretations based on offshore data, compared with reconstructions based on onshore data and numerical glaciological models.