Glaciomorphological Features from the East Antarctic Davis and Mawson Sea Shelves

More than 7500 nautical miles of hydroacoustic data were collected during the RV Polarstern Expedition PS141 in early 2024. This dataset reveals glacial landscapes on the largely unexplored East Antarctic continental shelves, including iceberg scours and grounding zone wedges. The data were collected by the EASI-3 expedition and presented at an international conference in 2024.

Use Cases

• Reconstructing past ice sheet extent and retreat based on mapped glacial lineations and grounding zone wedges.
• Modeling sediment transport processes based on identified features from the upper continental slope.
• Studying the vulnerability of the Aurora subglacial basin based on the interplay of ice and oceanic processes described.
• Validating paleoclimate models using evidence of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet's response to past climate fluctuations.

Strengths

• Data covers a previously largely unexplored area of the East Antarctic margin between 85°E and 115°E.
• Includes over 7500 nautical miles of continuous multibeam bathymetry and sediment echography surveys.
• Reveals a variety of specific glacial features like subglacial lakes and mega-scale glacial lineations.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset scale are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The description notes these are 'first preliminary results', suggesting the dataset may be incomplete.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Collected via continuous multibeam bathymetry and sediment echography surveys during the RV Polarstern Expedition PS141.

Time Range

Expedition took place from 06.02 – 14.04.2024.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-20 02:52:17.517051; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Davis and Mawson Sea continental shelves off East Antarctica, between 85°E and 115°E.