Pleistocene Lithology of Antarctic Ocean-Bottom Sediments

Abstract

Three ocean-bottom core samples were obtained from within the pack-ice area in the mouth of the Ross Sea, Antarctica, during the U.S. Navy Antarctic Expedition of 1946-1947. These cores consist of several alternations of glacial marine sediment and of fine-grained sediment which apparently is nonglacial. Age determinations of the material, made by Dr. W. D. Urry, provide a time scale on which the lithology may be plotted. Because the cores record periods of from one hundred and seventy thousand to over a million years, a record of the Pleistocene glacial history of Antartica is provided. A comparison of this with the record for the Northern Hemisphere indicates that glaciation was contemporaneous in the two hemispheres.