Oceanography (Sep 2012)
SHALDRIL I and II: Drilling from the Research Vessel Icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer
Abstract
Understanding of Antarctica's climate and ice sheet evolution remains fragmented due to a paucity of outcrops and drill cores that contain deposits from the Neogene (~ 23–2.6 million years ago), when major environmental changes were occurring. Sea ice and icebergs hinder sampling from conventional drill ships, limiting recovery of continental margin strata that bear the most direct record of glaciation on the Antarctic Continent. Because the continental shelf has been deeply eroded by ice sheets, older strata typically lie within a few meters to tens of meters below the seafloor. In most cases, these strata are buried beneath till and glacimarine sediments that, even though thin, prevent sampling by conventional coring methods.
