Subglacial precipitates record Antarctic ice sheet response to late Pleistocene millennial climate cycles.

ABSTRACT: Ice cores and offshore sedimentary records demonstrate enhanced ice loss along Antarctic coastal margins during millennial-scale warm intervals within the last glacial termination. However, the distal location and short temporal coverage of these records leads to uncertainty in both the spatial footprint of ice loss, and whether millennial-scale ice response occurs outside of glacial terminations. Here we present a >100kyr archive of periodic transitions in subglacial precipitate mineralogy that are synchronous with Late Pleistocene millennial-scale climate cycles. Geochemical and geochronologic data provide evidence for opal formation during cold periods via cryoconcentration of subglacial brine, and calcite formation during warm periods through the addition of subglacial meltwater origin

SUBMITTER: Piccione G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9477832 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature