Holocene Glacial Fluctuation Reconstructed From Glacio-marine Sediments at Skallen in the Lüzow-Holm Bay, East Antarctica

The history of glacial fluctuation in a fringe of Antarctica since LGM is able to be reconstructed from relative sea level change with raised marine sediments or coastal terraces due to isostatic rebound. In the Terra Nova bay, west Antarctica, ages of abandoned penguin rookeries were concentrated from 5,000 to 4,000 BP and warming event corresponding to that period could be recognized as " Penguin Optimum" (Baroni and Oronbelli, 1994). Concentration of ages of abandoned rookeries in almost same period is also reported in Windmill Islands, east Antarctica (Goodwin, 1993). Miura et al.(2002) revealed that the rate of coastal emergence due to isostatic rebound changed during mid Holocene by observing the stratigraphy of raised beach which had seventeen tidal steps in Lützow-Holm bay, east Antarctica and indicated the occurrence of warming event in mid Holocene. This study aims to reconstruct the history of glacial fluctuation in the east Antarctica since mid Holocene by mapping of glacio-marine sediments and geomorphological evidence of glacial advance or transgressional marine environment. The preliminary results of this study are as follows. 1) We could discriminate two periods of glacial advance since mid Holocene. The present belongs to the last retreat period. The fist period of glacial advance occurred in between 5,000 BP and 3,000 BP. The next one began at least since 1,950 BP and lasted for 200 years. The extent and duration of glacial advance was smaller than the first period. 2) The transitional period from the first glacial advance to the following retreat period possibly accords with the timing of other warming events reported in the antarctic area. We would like to indicate that the period of warming events in Antarctica apparently seems to be consistent with dry and cold period which is usually correlated with with the fluctuation of sunspots number reported in many areas such as Lake Chad (Rognon, 1979) or South Africa (Deacon and Lancaster, 1988) except north America. The difference of timing of glacial fluctuation in Antarctica and of climate change in other areas should be studied to understand the mechanism of global climate change.