Marine sediment record from the East Antarctic margin reveals dynamics of ice sheet recession

The Antarctic shelf is traversed by large-scale troughs developed glacial erosion. Swath bathymetric, lithologic, and data from jumbo piston cores from four sites along East Antarctic margin (Iceberg Alley, the Nielsen Basin, the Channel, and the Mertz-Ninnis Trough) are used to that these cross-shelf features controlled development calving bay reentrants in the Antarctic ice sheet during. At all sites except the Mertz-Ninnis Trough, the between the Last Glacial Maximum and the Holocene characterized by varved couplets deposited during a interval of extremely high primary productivity in a fjordlike. Nearly monospecific layers of the diatom Chaetoceros with slightly more terrigenous layers containing mixed diatom assemblage. We propose that springtime blooms dominated by Chaetoceros were generated well-stratified and restricted surface waters of calving that were influenced by the input of iron-rich meltwater. post-bloom summer-fall laminae were formed the downward flux of terrigenous material sourced melting glacial ice combined with mixed diatom assemblages. -based chronologies that constrain the timing deposition of the varved sediments within calving bay along the East Antarctic margin place deglaciation ca. 10, 500–11, 500 cal yr B. P. , post-dating Meltwater 1A (14, 200 cal yr B. P. ) and indicating that retreat of ice the East Antarctic margin was not the major contributor to pulse of meltwater.