Glaciomorphological features on the East Antarctic Davis and Mawson Sea continental shelves - First results from Polarstern Expedition PS141

Created 24/10/2025

Updated 24/10/2025

The RV Polarstern Expedition PS141 (06.02 – 14.04.2024), entitled "East Antarctic Ice Sheet Instability and its interaction with changes in Southern Ocean circulation - Part 3 (EASI-3)", was the third of the EASI expeditions that aim to investigate ocean–ice sheet interactions along the East Antarctic margin on different timescales. East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) fluctuations directly impact global sea level and ocean circulation. Studies on long-term ice sheet variability have so far mainly focused on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Therefore, very little is known about EAIS’s response to past climate fluctuations, especially its interplay with oceanic processes along the continental margin directly offshore the deep and vulnerable Aurora subglacial basin. The target region of the expedition were the Davis and Mawson Sea continental shelves between 85°E and 115°E, off the ice margin of Wilhelm II to Wilkes Land. Continuous multibeam bathymetry and sediment echography surveys of this largely unexplored area was one of the main objectives of the expedition. In total, we collected more than 7500 nm of hydroacoustic data on this expedition. The data reveal a wealth of sediment transport features from the upper continental slope towards a variety of glacial landscapes on the shelf, including iceberg scours, mega-scale glacial lineations, subglacial lakes, and grounding zone wedges. Detailed mapping of these features will help to reconstruct ice sheet dynamics in this area. Here we present some first preliminary results of the expedition.

Abstract presented at the 2nd International Conference on Seafloor Landforms, Processes and Evolution, Italy 2024.

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Title Glaciomorphological features on the East Antarctic Davis and Mawson Sea continental shelves - First results from Polarstern Expedition PS141
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/en/dataset/7710606e-3708-4cce-aed6-5409791f3739
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
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Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
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Data Portal Geoscience Australia

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This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Glaciomorphological features on the East Antarctic Davis and Mawson Sea continental shelves - First results from Polarstern Expedition PS141". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/glaciomorphological-features-on-the-east-antarctic-davis-and-mawson-sea-continental-shelves-fir