Magneto-stratigraphic studies in Neogene deposits of Taylor Valley and McMurdo Sound, Antarctica
Elston, D.P.; Bressler, S.L.
Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 11(4): 481-486
1981
ISSN/ISBN: 0303-6758 DOI: 10.1080/03036758.1981.10423337
Accession: 019359619
Magnetic polarity and susceptibility zonations obtained from drill cores have served to refine temporal correlations in glaciogenic sections cored in eastern Taylor Valley. The zonations have led to a better understanding of the glacial and structural history for an interval of time that extends from the late Miocene (about 7 m.y. ago) to perhaps near the end of the Pliocene (approx. 2.4 to 1.8 m.y.). However polarity data from a core drilled in McMurdo Sound (hole MSSTS-1) were found to be less useful. In this core, normal and reverse polarity deposits of Holocene, Pleistocene, and Pliocene age are nearly 40 m thick and appear to unconformably overlie strata assigned to the middle Miocene on the basis of a reworked fauna and flora. Gaps in the stratigraphic coverage of the Miocene strata, and two intervals in which the magnetisation post-dates deposition, however, have made development of a reliable polarity zonation impossible, and no firm correlation could be made with the magnetic polarity time scale.