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Late Quaternary Climate Change in Schirmacher Region, East Antarctica: As Revealed from Terrestrial Diamicts and Lacustrine Sediments

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Assessing the Antarctic Environment from a Climate Change Perspective

Abstract

The multi-proxy data, generated from the moraines and sediment cores of variety of lakes from Schirmacher region, cDML, East Antarctica has provided better insight into the Late Pleistocene to Holocene paleoclimatic evolution of the region during Late Quaternary. This chapter highlights the glacial signatures which are very well preserved in all kinds of sediments of this region. The clay minerals indicate a gradual shift in the weathering regime and therewith in climate from strongly glacial to fluvio-glacial during Late Quaternary. The results of surface textures of quartz grains have been discussed depth wise and in the same samples. In general it shows dominant glacial and glaciofluvial actions. The OSL chronology on moraines has provided information on different events of deglaciation in Schirmacher region, East Antarctica. The retreat of EAIS initiated much earlier than it was thought (sometime prior to 171 ka). There is no evidence of morainic deposits belonging to the Last Glacial Maximum. Formation of lake sediments started before 42 ka marks the beginning of climate change from glacial to glaciofluvial.

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Kumar Shrivastava, P., Asthana, R., Roy, S. (2022). Late Quaternary Climate Change in Schirmacher Region, East Antarctica: As Revealed from Terrestrial Diamicts and Lacustrine Sediments. In: Khare, N. (eds) Assessing the Antarctic Environment from a Climate Change Perspective. Earth and Environmental Sciences Library. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87078-2_6

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