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Abstract: Our study characterizes glacial and interglacial deposition on two Antarctic margins in order to discriminate between regional and continent-wide early to middle Pliocene warm intervals that caused sea-ice reduction and continental ice sheet retreat. We use a multi-proxy (i.e., sediment facies and grain size, siliceous microfossils, biogenic opal, geochemical composition and clay mineralogy) approach to examine sediments recovered in drill holes from the West Antarctic Peninsula and the East Antarctic Prydz Bay margins, focusing on the climatic record between 4 and 3.5Ma. Warm conditions in both East and West Antarctica are recorded, which based on our age model correspond to periods of prolonged or extreme warmth correlated with isotopic stages Gi5, Gi1, MG11 and MG7. For the Gi5 interglacial our data corroborates the 60% Dictyocha percentage at 34.60mbsf previously reported from Prydz Bay and interpreted to indicate a SSST of about 5.6°C above present. Our higher-resolution sampling interval shows Dictyocha percentages up to 87.5%, suggesting even higher SSSTs above present levels. During MG11, which coincides with the section dated by the magnetic polarity reversal Gilbert-Gauss at 3.58Ma, SSSTs were tentatively 2.5°–4° warmer than present, and reduced sea-ice cover in Prydz Bay and probably also west of the Antarctic Peninsula is indicated by increased primary productivity. In addition, a reduction of ice sheet size is suggested by the bioturbated and IRD-enriched facies that characterize these high-productivity intervals. Based in our age model and calculated sedimentation rates glacial–interglacial cyclicity between 4 and 3.5Ma in the cores from Antarctic Peninsula and Prydz Bay Sites, result in frequencies consistent with obliquity and precession forcing. The prolonged early-middle Pliocene warm period was superimposed on a cooling trend recorded by the: 1) increase of the terrigenous sediment supply at all our sites starting between 3.7 and 3.6Ma, and 2) decrease in SSSTs (from >5.6°C at 3.7Ma to 4°–2.7°C at 3.6Ma, and 2.5°C at 3.5Ma.) indicated by the silicoflagellate W/C R from Site 1165. We postulate that, although the start of a cooling trend is recorded at about 3.7–3.6-Ma, relatively warm conditions prevailed until 3.5Ma capable of maintained open marine conditions with reduced or no sea-ice and reduced ice sheet volume and extent. The information in this paper regarding the timing of continental-wide and regional warm events and the paleoenvironmental conditions that characterized them (i.e., SSST, extent of sea ice, and ice sheet size) are relevant to help constrain paleoclimate and ice sheet models for the early-middle Pliocene, a time period when the level of warming according to the report, is within range of the estimates of the Earth''s global temperature increases for the 21st century. These data, when linked to modeling studies like those of Pollard and DeConto (2009) will further our understanding of how these ice sheets may respond to future warming of the southern high latitudes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The study of existing cores collected across the Wilkes Land margin provides us with a better understanding of the sediment distribution and processes across this margin during the Holocene, and during Pleistocene glacial and interglacial cycles. Holocene depositional rates are high in deep (>1000 m) inner-shelf basins where diatomaceous ooze is deposited at estimated minimum sedimentation rates ranging from 40 to 60 cm/kyr. In the shelf troughs, Holocene sediment has a patchy distribution or is totally absent. This is also the case on the shelf banks due to differential deposition because of the irregular relief of the continental shelf and the erosion and redistribution by bottom currents. Pleistocene interglacial sedimentation is well represented in sediment from the continental rise and is dominated by hemipelagic deposition of massive mud with the highest biogenic content (as indicated by %opal) and with a high abundance of clasts (IRD). During the Pleistocene glacial cycles, diamictons were deposited in the continental-shelf troughs and on the banks. Reworking (e.g., by bottom currents) and remobilization (e.g., gravity flows) of these diamictons is a common process along the shallow continental-shelf banks. On the continental slope and the continental rise, gravity flows are one of the most important sedimentary processes. Sediment from continental-slope cores, with a texture that greatly resembles the diamictons on the shelf, is interpreted to represent either part of a slump block or the start of a debris flow. Downslope, crudely stratified to laminated intervals represent the transition between an end member of a debris flow and a turbidity flow. Some of the laminated intervals in cores from the continental rise represent sediment deposited from a turbidity flow. Ages obtained from cores further support that slumps and gravity flows are dominant processes in this margin, because numerous hiatuses apparently are present in cores from the base of the slope. One of these cores extends into the Miocene. Elsewhere on the continental rise, massive and laminated sediments in cores of similar length record near-continuous Pleistocene sedimentation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]