Sediment Cores from Beneath the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica

Two sediment cores collected from beneath the Amery Ice Shelf in East Antarctica describe physical sedimentation patterns. The cores, AM01b and AM02, comprise Holocene siliceous muddy ooze and provide indicators of sediment transport pathways. The data is hosted by the Australian Ocean Data Network and was last updated in June 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling sub-ice shelf basal melt/freeze patterns based on sedimentological signatures.
• Reconstructing past current activity beneath ice shelves based on lithology and bedding structures.
• Calibrating or challenging existing ocean circulation models using the described sediment transport pathways.
• Dating marine sediment sequences in Prydz Bay using the provided corrected 14C ages.

Strengths

• Provides a direct physical contrast between sites of basal freezing (AM01b) and basal melting (AM02).
• Includes multiple dating and compositional indicators: lithology, 14C surface ages, absolute diatom abundance, and diatom assemblages.
• Contains a detailed episode of strong current activity recorded in the lower 27 cm of core AM01b.

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 basal age of core AM01b is noted as potentially contaminated by recycled organic matter.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Physical collection and analysis of two sediment cores.

Time Range

Holocene, with a basal 14C age of approximately 28,250 years BP for one core.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-05 07:23:39.258698; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Beneath the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica (Prydz Bay region).