Synchronous mid-Holocene marine and terrestrial deglaciation in the Ross Sea, Antarctica.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 41419459.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-025-65494-5 and PMC identifier 12722368.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The Ross Ice Shelf buttresses ice draining from both East and West Antarctica and its collapse could accelerate the loss of inland ice sheets, rapidly raising sea level. Documenting the location, timing and rate of past glacial retreat can help reveal processes driving rapid mass loss, informing projections of ice sheet responses to a warming climate. Here, we present a record of mid-Holocene ice retreat from the southwestern Ross Sea using facies succession and paired ramped pyrolysis oxidation <sup>14</sup>C/<sup>210</sup>Pb chronology. This record shows rapid ice shelf retreat from 6.9-5.4 cal kyr BP, coeval with thinning of adjacent outlet glaciers. Our findings reconcile earlier discrepancies in terrestrial and marine reconstructions, and indicate that synchronous grounding line retreat from west of Ross Island to the Siple Coast at ~7-6.2 cal kyr BP was likely driven by warm-water incursions, a process active in parts of Antarctica today.