EGU2020-1603
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-1603
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Submarine landforms on the Weddell Sea shelf imaged at high resolution using AUVs

Julian Dowdeswell1, Christine Batchelor1, Sasha Montelli1, Dag Ottesen2, Evelyn Dowdeswell1, and Jeffrey Evans3
Julian Dowdeswell et al.
  • 1Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
  • 2Geological Survey of Norway, Trondheim, Norway
  • 3Dept. of Geography, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

Multibeam echo-sounders were deployed from Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) flying close to the seafloor of the Weddell Sea shelf in order to investiagte the glacial landforms there with a view to understanding processes and patterns associated with deglaciation from the Last Glacial Maximum on the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula. A horizontal resolution of 0.5 m (using conventional mulitbeam systems), and in some cases 0.05 m (using interferometric multibeam equipment), allowed delicate seafloor landforms to be mapped in several areas of the shelf beyond the Larsen C and former Larsen A and B ice shelves. A number of glacial landform assemblages were observed, including suites of delicate ridges associated with grounding-zone wedges and the grounding of icebergs on the shelf. These landforms are probably related to the action of tides moving the ice up and down through a series of tidal cycles. At the highest spatial resolution, individual dropstones derived from rain-out during the melting of floating ice were imaged clearly. Imaging the seafloor at such high resolution allows both very detailed descriptions of submarine landform morphology and also the complexity of such landforms and landform assemblages to be better understood, aiding the interpretation of the glacial and related processes that led to their formation.

How to cite: Dowdeswell, J., Batchelor, C., Montelli, S., Ottesen, D., Dowdeswell, E., and Evans, J.: Submarine landforms on the Weddell Sea shelf imaged at high resolution using AUVs, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-1603, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-1603, 2019

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