Late Pliocene to recent depositional processes on the Sabrina Coast (East Antarctica): the diatom contribution

Abstract

By examining the sedimentary records from two new cores collected from the Sabrina Coast slope, we have developed an age model spanning from the late Pliocene to the present. From multiproxy sediment analyses of the piston and kasten core, PC03, and KC03, collected during the IN2017_V01 survey on the Sabrina Coast (East Antarctica) offshore the Totten Glacier, we here present the outcomes derived within the seismostratigraphic record coupled with the sedimentological, geochemical paleomagnetic, and biostratigraphic contexts. Our results highlight that the area has been affected by recurrent sediment slides facilitated by siliceous deposits, both biogenic and from an unprecedented tephra layer, during some of the major paleoclimatological events of the late Pliocene. Diatoms contributed not only to the biostratigraphic and depositional environmental definition but also to the instability of the slope, together with the tephra layer, as documented offshore the Sabrina-Aurora Basin for the first time.