The stratigraphy and magnetostratigraphy of surface and subsurface late Cenozoic Ross Sea drift from drill cores taken in the eastern Taylor Valley

In the 1980/81 and 1982/83 Antarctic field seasons, drilling and mapping were undertaken as part of a programme in the eastern Taylor Valley to investigate the late Cenozoic glacial history of the Taylor Valley and the surrounding environment. Previously, glacigenic deposits were cored in the eastern Taylor Valley in the 1974/75 season by the Dry Valleys Drilling Project (DVDP) and studies of the lithostratigraphy and chronostratigraphy of the cores provided correlations and identified problems in that the various studies led to different interpretations of the geological history of the area. Therefore, further investigations of the stratigraphy and age of the surface and near surface units in the eastern Taylor Valley were conducted with the main objective of the study to determine the stratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic correlation of subsurface and surface late Cenozoic Ross Sea drift in the Taylor Valley. The regional implications of this study were to decipher aspects of the Late Cenozoic glacial history of the Dry Valleys and McMurdo Sound that bear on the character and extent of the Ross Ice sheet and the nature of terrestrial glaciations in the Dry Valleys. Together, these have been postulated to be related to changes in worldwide climate. In the 1980/81 field season, two core holes were drilled in the eastern Taylor Valley on and closely adjacent to Coral Ridge (ETV 1 - 4.1m and then abandoned and ETV 2 - 44.9m). Samples for paleomagnetic analysis were obtained on narrow stratigraphic spacing’s across the ETV 2 core with the objective to obtain polarity data that could aid in correlation of the various outcrop and drill core sections. In the 1982/83 season six shallow holes (ranging in depth from 6.6 to 58 m) were drilled between Explorers Cove and Lake Fryxell. The total footage drilled was 151.7m with 109.4m of recovered core.