EARTH 10 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: East Antarctic Ice Sheet, West Antarctic Ice Sheet, Glacier
Document Summary
Summer temps average 20-24 c (68-76 f: paleocene (~60 ma) Starts to cool, gradual loss of warm plants: late paleocene (~50 ma) Strong seasonality (25 c summer, 2 c winter) Eocene/oligocene boundary: glaciers take over, drop in oxygen isotope records, a few refugia still exist & ice sheets were largely temperate , experienced periods of waxing & waning. Miocene and pliocene: tundra-type vegetation hangs on in most of antarctica until middle. Hold on a little longer in antarctic peninsula (~12 ma: by 14 ma, east antarctic ice sheet permanent. Prior to that it looks like it came and went with milankovitch cyclicity: pliocene-pleistocene. Relatively warm period during pliocene in which west antarctic ice sheet may have been reduced greatly. After 3. 3 ma, antarctica much like it is today. Major drilling campaigns: cape roberts project, andrill, shaldrill, earth"s total water: 3% freshwater, 97% salt water, freshwater- groundwater (what we drink): 30%, icecaps & glaciers:
