Direct evidence for the response of Earth’s largest continental ice mass, the East
Antarctic ice sheet (EAIS), to climatic warmth is extremely limited. The primary aim of this
thesis is to improve understanding of the behaviour of the EAIS during the warmer-than-present
Pliocene Epoch (2.58 to 5.33 million years ago). To this end, I analysed the
radiogenic neodymium and strontium isotopic provenance of fine-grained (<63μm) Pliocene
detrital marine sediments deposited offshore of the East Antarctic continent, which can
provide information on source bedrock characteristics, continental erosional patterns and
marine sediment depositional processes. In addition, I also analysed argon isotopic ages of
ice-rafted hornblende grains (>150μm), to infer sites of major iceberg production events
through time.
Within this thesis, I present Pliocene marine sediment data from various cores drilled
from the East Antarctic margin, thereby developing a detailed framework for linking
provenance variability to ice sheet behaviour. My key findings have been collated into five
distinct chapters, providing: i) the first evidence for significant retreat of the EAIS in the low-lying
Wilkes Subglacial Basin in response to the earliest Pliocene climatic warmth; ii)
insights into the benefits and pitfalls associated with utilising different tools in glaciomarine
sediment provenance studies; iii) constraints on the behaviour of the EAIS and West
Antarctic ice sheet during the warmth of Pleistocene super-interglacial, Marine Isotope Stage
31; iv) insights into the role of declining sea surface termperatures during the Pliocene on the
flux and provenance of distally sourced ice-rafted detritus, along with evidence for potential
ice sheet destabilisation events in the Aurora Subglacial Basin during Pliocene interglacials;
and v) advances in understanding of the evolution of the EAIS during the Late Pliocene
climatic transition, and its role in global Pliocene climate change. Hence, the findings
presented within this thesis provide new and significant evidence for the behaviour of the
EAIS during the Pliocene, and suggest it has in the past been more sensitive to climatic
change than previously realised.