It is now two weeks since I arrived back in the UK from IODP expedition 318 Wilkes Land – time to summarize our findings and bring this blog to a close.
During our two months expedition we drilled at seven sites close to, and on the Antarctic Wilkes Land continental shelf, at water depth ranging between 400 and 4000m. Despite severe weather and ice (berg) conditions, we managed to drill 3200m of sediments beneath the Antarctic sea floor, with an average core recovery of 53%. Together, the cores represent ~53 million years of Antarctic climate history. They tell the tale of an ice-free, warm greenhouse world, the first cooling around Antarctica, the onset and erosional consequences of the first Antarctic glaciers, and the subsequent dynamics of the waxing and waning Antarctic ice sheet, all the way to the thick, unprecedented ‘tree ring style’ records with seasonal resolution of the last deglaciation that began some 10,000 years ago.