ODP Leg 188: Cenozoic Glacial Transitions in Prydz Bay, Antarctica

Ocean Drilling Program cores from Legs 119 and 188 provide direct evidence for Cenozoic paleoenvironmental changes in the Prydz Bay region of East Antarctica. The data reveal a transition from a Late Cretaceous alluvial plain with conifer woodland to a cooler Nothofagus rainforest scrub by the late Eocene, followed by the first advance of the ice sheet onto the shelf. The dataset is hosted by the Australian Ocean Data Network and was last updated in June 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling Antarctic ice sheet evolution based on sediment core evidence of glacial advances.
• Reconstructing paleoenvironments based on descriptions of fluvial, deltaic, and marine shelf transitions.
• Analyzing the timing of major climate shifts based on the late Eocene to early Oligocene marine flooding surface.
• Studying sediment provenance and glacial textures based on grain texture evidence from fluvial sands.

Strengths

• Provides direct evidence from physical cores drilled by the Ocean Drilling Program.
• Covers a long-term geological record spanning from the Late Cretaceous through the Cenozoic.
• Integrates core data with seismic data to infer geological history where cores are missing.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Cores do not exist for the early Oligocene to early Miocene period, creating a data gap.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Ocean drilling cores and seismic data from Ocean Drilling Program Legs 119 and 188.

Time Range

Late Cretaceous to Cenozoic

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-17 01:28:20.583244; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Prydz Bay region, East Antarctica