A beryllium-10 chronology of late-glacial moraines in the upper Rakaia valley, Southern Alps, New Zealand supports Southern- Hemisphere warming during the Younger Dryas

Interhemispheric differences in the timing of pauses or reversals in the temperature rise at the end of the last ice age can help to clarify the mechanisms that influence glacial terminations. Our beryllium-10 (10Be) surface-exposure chronology for the moraines of the upper Rakaia valley of New Zealand's Southern Alps, combined with glaciological modeling, show that late-glacial temperature change in the atmosphere over the Southern Alps exhibited an Antarctic-like pattern. During the Antarctic Cold Reversal, the upper Rakaia glacier built two well-defined, closely-spaced moraines on Reischek knob at 13,900 ± 120 [1σ; ± 310 yrs when including a 2.1% production-rate (PR) uncertainty] and 13,140 ± 250 (±370) yrs ago, in positions consistent with mean annual temperature approximately 2 °C cooler than modern values. The formation of distinct, widely-spaced moraines at 12,140 ± 200 (±320) and 11,620 ± 160 (±290) yrs ago on Meins Knob, 2 km up-valley from the Reischek knob moraines, indicates that the glacier thinned by ∼250 m during Heinrich Stadial 0 (HS 0, coeval with the Younger Dryas 12,900 to 11,600 yrs ago). The glacier-inferred temperature rise in the upper Rakaia valley during HS 0 was about 1 °C. Because a similar pattern is documented by well-dated glacial geomorphologic records from the Andes of South America, the implication is that this late-glacial atmospheric climate signal extended from 79°S north to at least 36°S, and thus was a major feature of Southern Hemisphere paleoclimate during the last glacial termination

Holocene relative sea-level history of the Southern Victoria Land coast, Antarctica

More than 130 radiocarbon dates of penguin remains and guano, sealskin, shells, and seaweed from raised beach ridges afford relative sea-level information for southern Victoria Land. A new relative sea-level curve suggests that the final unloading of grounded ice from the coast took place about 6600 14C years BP, in keeping with previous estimates of the timing of deglaciation. Since this time, the coast has experienced 32 m of relative sea-level fall at rates ranging from 2 to 15 mm/year, consistent with glacioisostatic rebound. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

The most extensive Holocene advance in the Stauning Alper, East Greenland, occurred in the Little Ice Age

We present glacial geologic and chronologic data concerning the Holocene ice extent in the Stauning Alper of East Greenland. The retreat of ice from the late-glacial position back into the mountains was accomplished by at least 11 000 cal years B.P. The only recorded advance after this time occurred during the past few centuries (the Little Ice Age). Therefore, we postulate that the Little Ice Age event represents the maximum Holocene ice extent in this part of East Greenland

Late Cenozoic glacial history of the Terra Nova Bay Region, northern Victoria Land, Antarctica

The Transantarctic Mountains inland of Terra Nova Bay exhibit four major landsapces. 1) The first type consists of deep troughs propagated inland by headward cutting. The lower portions of these troughs form ice-covered fjords, where present-day grounding lines extend inland beneath outlet glaciers. 2) Well-developed alpine glacial topography (with cirques, ridges, horns, and spurs) characterizes the region. Alpine topography has propagated from the deep troughs into the intervening mountain blocks. This morphology can locally be very old and reflects a different-from-present climatic regime. 3) Relict summit mesas occur in the high central mountain ranges between troughs. 4) The fourth type of morphology features undulating coastal piedmonts that are tilted seaward. The process of inland erosion by outlet glacier troughts and adjacent alpine topography has left isolated nearly intact remnants of the original topography. Trimlines superimposed on the alpine and outlet-trough topography mark the maximum possible expansion of the northern Victoria Land ice cover since erosion of the alpine topography. There is no definitive evidence that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet overrode northern Victoria Land nunataks or mountains. High-elevation striations in the Eisenhower Range seem to have been carved during Terra Nova glaciation. If so, local mesa ice caps and mountain glaciers expanded to feed the Terra Nova piedmont glacier during late Wisconsin time, unlike the situation farther south where alpine glacier termini in the Dry Valleys were less extensive than now during late Wisconsin time