Ocean Drilling Program: Kerguelen-Heard Plateau - Cenozoic Variations in Southern Ocean Currents and Relationship to Climatic Changes

More information can be obtained from the Ocean Drilling Program website. The data obtained from the drilling is available on the Ocean Drilling Program website (see Download Paleontology Data). From the abstract of one of the papers: The timing and nature of the initiation of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is the subject of considerable discussion.

Before Leg 119, the earliest known unequivocal Cenozoic glacial sediments were discovered in a Lower Oligocene sequence from the Ross Sea. Quartz grains of Eocene age from the Subantarctic Pacific Ocean were inferred from their grain texture to be ice-rafted. Previous results obtained by Leg 113 in the Weddell Sea indicate that glaciation at sea level first occurred during the late early Oligocene on East Antarctica and during the late Miocene on western Antarctica.

Our new results show that glaciation is present during the earliest Oligocene and possibly the late Miocene.