Development of
High Resolution Chronostratigraphic Models for the Southern Ocean Using
Quantitative Biostratigraphy
Tuzzi, Eva1, Rosemary Dutton
Cody2, David M. Harwood3, Richard Levy2, Diane
M. Winter3 (1) Dept. of Geosciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln,
Lincoln, NE (2) ANDRILL Science Management Office, University of Nebraska,
Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, (3) Department of Geosciences, University of Nebraska,
Lincoln, Lincoln, NE
During the last 30 years scientific
drilling expeditions in the circum-Antarctic region have recovered large
amounts of paleoenvironmental data from a variety of different proxies. Yet the
scientific community has been unable to produce a coherent geologic history for
the Antarctic region and Southern Ocean, often generating conflicting
interpretations. In particular, the temporal pattern of the evolution of
Antarctic climate, ice sheet configuration, Southern Ocean circulation is
currently under debate, particularly the time interval between middle Miocene
and Plio-Pleistocene. A record of ice sheet fluctuations is largely inferred by
interpretations of oxygen isotope data and sequence stratigraphy data from
distal ocean basins. In many instances, interpretations do not agree with
studies on the Antarctic margin, which provide direct evidence for the
persistence of polythermal glacial environmental conditions through Miocene
time and into the early Pliocene. To help resolve this debate, a robust tool
for chronostratigraphic correlation is required to establish the precise
relationship among different environmental proxies, and correlate
paleoenvironmental events between
AAPG Search and Discover Article #90063©2007 AAPG Annual Convention, Long Beach, California