EGU24-10527, updated on 02 May 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-10527
EGU General Assembly 2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Does this moraine constrain a Late Holocene readvance in the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet?

Keir Nichols1, Jonathan Adams1,2, Katie Brown3, Marion McKenzie4, Ryan Venturelli4, Brent Goehring5, Joanne Johnson2, Dylan Rood1, Klaus Wilcken6, John Woodward7, and Stephen Roberts2
Keir Nichols et al.
  • 1Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK
  • 2British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK
  • 3Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, London, UK
  • 4Department of Geology and Geological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA
  • 5Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA
  • 6Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Lucas Heights, NSW, Australia
  • 7Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Following rapid ice thinning in the mid-Holocene, Pope Glacier (adjacent to Thwaites Glacier in the Amundsen Sea sector) was at least 30-35 m thinner than present for at least 3 kyr in the mid- to Late Holocene. The timing of the end of this ice lowstand and subsequent rethickening of ice to near its present configuration is poorly constrained. We present five paired 10Be and 26Al cosmogenic nuclide exposure ages that provide constraints on the timing of this ice sheet readvance. The ages are sourced from samples collected from a moraine <1 km from the grounding line of Pope Glacier on a nunatak between Thwaites and Pope glaciers. To help interpret the new exposure ages, we measure the morphology of the moraine and assess modern ice flow directions to provide an insight into the processes that formed it. We conclude that the moraine is a type of medial moraine and hypothesise that it was formed by englacial thrusting during the advance of a small glacier on the flanks of Mount Murphy approximately 1.4 ± 0.5 ka. We infer that the timing of this glacier advance coincides with the Late Holocene thickening of the adjacent Pope Glacier and speculate that it also coincides with thickening of ice in the wider Amundsen Sea sector. We also note that it coincides with glacier readvances on the Antarctic Peninsula. Our results indicate an ice thickness change from 35 m beneath to 50 m above present levels occurred ~1.4 ka, a scale of ice thickness change that has implications for the interpretation of GPS measurements of ongoing surface uplift used to model the solid Earth’s response to surface mass loading and, in turn, on our ability to understand both past and future ice sheet dynamics.

How to cite: Nichols, K., Adams, J., Brown, K., McKenzie, M., Venturelli, R., Goehring, B., Johnson, J., Rood, D., Wilcken, K., Woodward, J., and Roberts, S.: Does this moraine constrain a Late Holocene readvance in the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet?, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-10527, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-10527, 2024.