Antarctica

Paleosols from King George Island, Maritime Antarctica – indicators of paleoenvironmental change during the Eocene/Oligocene transition

01/03/2014 to 31/03/2017

The ice-free and forest dominated landscape changed progressively to periglacial conditions from the Eocene to the Oligocene, which is called the greenhouse-icehouse transition, being considered as the largest glaciation of the last 65 Ma. The main objective of this project is to reconstruct the environment from paleosols of the Maritime Antarctica during the Eocene-Oligocene transition. The specific objectives are: to estimate the intensity of paleoweathering, to identify the main pedogenic processes, to assess the mean annual paleotemperature (MAPT) and mean annual paleoprecipitation (MAPP) from soil-geochemical data and stable isotopes, to estimate the atmospheric CO2 concentration during the period of soil formation and to identify the paleovegetation and paleo-soilhydrological conditions.