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Glacio-lacustrine aragonite deposition, meltwater evolution and glacial history during isotope stage 3 at Radok Lake, Amery Oasis, northern Prince Charles Mountains, East Antarctica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2007

Ian D. Goodwin  and
John Hellstrom
Ian D. Goodwin*
Affiliation:
Environmental and Climate Change Research Group, School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
John Hellstrom
Affiliation:
School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia
*
Ian.Goodwin@newcastle.edu.au
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Abstract

The late Quaternary glacial history of the Amery Oasis, and Prince Charles Mountains is of significant interest because about 10% of the total modern Antarctic ice outflow is discharged via the adjacent Lambert Glacier system. A glacial thrust moraine sequence deposited along the northern shoreline of Radok Lake between 20–10 ka bp, overlies a layer of thin, aragonite crusts which provide important constraints on the glacial history of the Amery Oasis. The modern Radok Lake is fed by the terminal meltwaters of the alpine Battye Glacier. The aragonite crusts were deposited in shallow water of ancestral Radok Lake 53 ka bp, during the A3 warm event in Isotope Stage 3. Oxygen isotope (δ18O) analysis of the last glacial-age aragonite crusts indicates that they precipitated from freshwater with a δ18OSMOW composition of -36%, which is 8% more depleted than the present water (-28%) in Radok Lake. A regional oxygen isotope (δ18O) and elevation relationship for snow is used to determine the source of meltwater and glacial ice in Radok Lake during the A3 warm event. This relationship indicates that Radok Lake received meltwater from the confluence of both Battye Glacier ice and an expansion of grounded western Lambert Glacier ice in the Amery embayment.

Keywords

carbonateglacial meltwaterlacustrineLambert Glacier groundingoxygen isotope
Type
Earth Sciences
Information
Antarctic Science , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 365 - 372
Copyright
Copyright © Antarctic Science Ltd 2007

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