Divergent flow of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet on the outer contintental shelf of the Amundsen Sea during the late Quaternary

Abstract

Summary Understanding the past glacial history of regions undergoing potential rapid deglaciation is essential in order to estimate the possible threat of sea level rise. Recently acquired data have given new images of mega-scale glacial lineations on the sea floor of the Amundsen Sea, which provide us a new understanding of the direction of glacial flow on the continental shelf of the Amundsen Sea region. Two adjacent areas of seafloor on the outer shelf of the Amundsen Sea embayment exhibit remarkably different styles of glacial lineations, and allow the interpretation of a divergent glacial trough for the Pine Island Glacier during the last glacial maximum, whereas ice flow from the Abbot Ice Shelf probably converged with that from the Pine Island Glacier to the north of a grounding zone wedge