Seismic stratigraphy of the Plio-Pleistocene Ross Island flexural moat-fill: a prognosis for ANDRILL Program drilling beneath McMurdo-Ross Ice Shelf

These phases of load-induced subsidence may have periodically overdeepened the moat, making it likely that the sedimentary fill is relatively continuous and has largely escaped erosion by ice grounding during past glacial expansions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) and the MRIS. The age relationships provided by radiometric dating of the various volcanic loads imply that the sediments here have the potential to provide a relatively continuous and high-resolution glacimarine record of the past behavior of the WAIS-MRIS and the climate history of the western Ross Sea region back to ∼5 Ma. This stratigraphic record is scheduled to be drilled by the ANDRILL Program in the austral summer of 2006. From the interpretation of seismic facies, we present a stratigraphic prognosis for the proposed drill site.