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

Drilling data from Ocean Drilling Program Legs 119 (1988) and 188 (2000) provides direct evidence for Cenozoic paleoenvironmental changes in the Prydz Bay region. Cores from Sites 1165-1167 reveal transitions from a Late Cretaceous alluvial plain to an Eocene rainforest scrub, followed by the first ice sheet advance onto the shelf. The dataset, managed by Geoscience Australia, includes core and seismic data to infer environmental history where physical cores are absent.

Use Cases

• Modeling the transition from fluvio-deltaic to marine shelf environments based on core stratigraphy.
• Studying the timing of initial Antarctic glaciation based on late Eocene grain textures in fluvial sands.
• Reconstructing paleovegetation changes from austral conifer woodland to Nothofagus scrub using core evidence.
• Analyzing continental shelf progradation and submarine canyon formation using integrated core and seismic data.

Strengths

• Direct evidence from two Ocean Drilling Program legs (119 and 188) spanning over a decade.
• Cores cover specific sites (1165, 1166, 1167) across the continental margin.
• Integrated analysis using both physical cores and seismic data to fill temporal gaps.

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Cores are missing for the early Oligocene to early Miocene period, requiring inference from seismic data.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Ocean drilling cores and seismic data collection during ODP Legs 119 and 188.

Time Range

Late Cretaceous to Cenozoic (likely focusing on late Eocene to Oligocene transitions)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-20 03:28:01.591934; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Prydz Bay region, East Antarctica