This week we finished our first drill site, which was Site WLRIS07 on the map. The primary science objective for this site was to recover a distal record of the first arrival of glaciers to the eastern Wilkes Land margin. This is thought to represent the Earth’s transition from a ‘Greenhouse world’ to an ‘Icehouse world’ some 33 million years ago. We drilled the seafloor in 4000m water depth and recovered sediments from down to about 1000m. The material is truly spectacular: we recovered sediments from about ten different lithostratigraphic units ranging from very biogenic material over glacial deposits to very clay-rich material. We also found layers which were very rich in ice-rafted debris. Most of the material is of Miocene age (~5 to 23 million years), but we also found some older material (Oligocene and Eocene). Stay tuned and follow all the science results to come out over the next years – I am sure they will bring our understanding on Antarctic glaciation to a new level!
After completion of drilling at Site WLRIS07 we collected all the drill pipe and moved over to the continental shelf. Under bright blue sky we arrived at Site ADEL01B, where we are currently drilling in a place where a lot of sediment was deposited very fast over the past ~10,000 years. This project was an add on to the original drilling proposal, and has the objective to recover a high-resolution record of the Holocene (the past 10,000 years). So far things are going well.
My personal highlight was that for the past two days we could see the Antarctic ice sheet. We are only about 30 miles off the coast of the continent. Due to the spectacular weather we can actually see the continent, and a large number of icebergs grounded right in front of it (see picture) – I will remember this view for a long time to come …
