Antarctic glacial history since the Last Glacial Maximum: An overview of the record on land

Abstract

This overview examines available circum-Antarctic glacial history archives on land, related to developments after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). It considers the glacial-stratigraphic and morphologic records and also biostratigraphical information from moss banks, lake sediments and penguin rookeries, with some reference to relevant glacial marine records. It is concluded that Holocene environmental development in Antarctica differed from that in the Northern Hemisphere. The initial deglaciation of the shelf areas surrounding Antarctica took place before 10 000 14C yrs before present(BP), and was controlled by rising global sea level. This was followed by the deglaciation of some presently ..