Shallow marine benthic communities around Antarctica show high levels of endemism, gigantism, slow growth, longevity and late maturity, as well as adaptive radiations that have generated considerable biodiversity in some taxa. The deeper parts of the Southern Ocean exhibit some unique environmental features, including a very deep continental shelf and a weakly stratified water column, and are the source for much of the deep water in the world ocean. These features suggest that deep-sea faunas around the Antarctic may be related both to adjacent shelf communities and to those in other oceans. Unlike shallow-water Antarctic benthic communities, however, little is known about life in this vast deep-sea region. Here, we report new data from recent sampling expeditions in the deep Weddell Sea and adjacent areas (748-6,348 m water depth) that reveal high levels of new biodiversity; for example, 674 isopods species, of which 585 were new to science. Bathymetric and biogeographic trends varied between taxa. In groups such as the isopods and polychaetes, slope assemblages included species that have invaded from the shelf. In other taxa, the shelf and slope assemblages were more distinct. Abyssal faunas tended to have stronger links to other oceans, particularly the Atlantic, but mainly in taxa with good dispersal capabilities, such as the Foraminifera. The isopods, ostracods and nematodes, which are poor dispersers, include many species currently known only from the Southern Ocean. Our findings challenge suggestions that deep-sea diversity is depressed in the Southern Ocean and provide a basis for exploring the evolutionary significance of the varied biogeographic patterns observed in this remote environment.

This paper provides both an introduction to and summary for the Atlas of Contourite Systems that has been compiled as part of the International Geological Correlation Project - IGCP 432. Following the seminal works of George Wust on the physical oceanography of bottom currents, and Charley Hollister on contourite sediments, a series of significant advances have been made over the past few decades. While accepting that ideas and terms must remain flexible as our knowledge base continues to increase, we present a consensus view on terminology and definitions of bottom currents, contourites and drifts. Both thermohaline and wind-driven circulation, influenced by Coriolis Force and molded by topography, contribute to the oceanic system of bottom currents. These semi-permanent currents show significant variability in time and space, marked by periodic benthic storm events in areas of high surface kinetic energy.Six different drift types are recognized in the ocean basins and margins at depths greater than about 300 m: (i) contourite sheet drifts; (ii) elongate mounded drifts; (iii) channel related drifts; (iv) confined drifts; (v) infill drifts; and (vi) modified drift-turbidite systems. In addition to this overall geometry, their chief seismic characteristics include: a uniform reflector pattern that reflects long-term stability, drift-wide erosional discontinuities caused by periodic changes in bottom current regime, and stacked broadly lenticular seismic depositional units showing oblique to downcurrent migration. At a smaller scale, a variety of seismic facies can be recognized that are here related to bottom current intensity. A model for seismic facies cyclicity (alternating transparent/reflector zones) is further elaborated, and linked to bottom current/climate change. Both erosional features and depositional bedforms are diagnostic of bottom current systems and velocities.Many different contourite facies are now known to exist, encompassing all compositional types. We propose here a Cl-5 notation for the standard contourite facies sequence, which can be interpreted in terms of fluctuation in bottom current velocity and/or sediment supply. Several proxies can be utilized to decode contourite successions in terms of current fluctuation. Gravel lag and shale chip contourites, as well as erosional discontinuities are indicative of still greater velocities. There are a small but growing number of land-based examples of fossil contourites, based on careful analysis using the recommended three-stage approach to interpretation. Debate still surrounds the recognition and interpretation of bottom current reworked turbidites.

We constrain, in detail, fluctuations of two former ice caps in NW Scotland with multibeam seabed surveys, geomorphological mapping and cosmogenic 10 Be isotope analyses. We map a continuous sequence of 40 recessional moraines stretching from ~10 km offshore to the Wester Ross mountains. Surface-exposure ages from boulders on moraine ridges in Assynt and the Summer Isles region show that substantial, dynamic, ice caps existed in NW Scotland between 13-14 ka BP. We interpret this as strong evidence that large active glaciers probably survived throughout the Lateglacial Interstadial, and that during the Older Dryas period (c.14 ka BP) ice caps in NW Scotland were thicker and considerably more extensive than in the subsequent Younger Dryas Stadial. By inference, we suggest that Lateglacial ice-cap oscillations in Scotland reflect the complex interplay between changing temperature and precipitation regimes during this climatically unstable period (~15-11 ka BP). words

Century-long precipitation records from stations in the contiguous USA indicate an increased frequency of rainy days over the past century and some evolution in the probability distributions of precipitation amount. Temporal trends in eight metrics of the precipitation climate are of similar magnitude and sign regardless of whether they are derived from bootstrapping of regression residuals or using the Kendall's tau statistic, though the bootstrap technique generally resolved a larger number of 'significant' trends. There is substantial variability in terms of the magnitude, significance and sign of the linear trends with specific metrics, and they are sensitive to recording bias of light precipitation events in the early part of the 20th century. The majority of stations that exhibit significant linear trends show evidence of increases in the intensity of events above the 95th percentile. The resolved trends tend to have a larger magnitude at the end of the century. Spatial variability as manifest in the spatial autocorrelation in the interannual variability and trends in extreme metrics is manifest at a range of scales, but in general the correlation between stations is significant only for separation of distances of a few tens of kilometres. The largest trends towards increased annual total precipitation, number of rainy days and intense precipitation (e.g. fraction of precipitation derived from events in excess of the 90th percentile value) are focussed on the Central Plains/northwestern Midwest.

The seaboard of western Scotland is a classic fjord landscape formed by glaciation over at least the last 0.5 Ma. We examine the glacial geology preserved in the fjords (or sea lochs) of the Summer Isles region of NW Scotland using high-resolution seismic data, multibeam swath bathymetry, sea-bed sediment cores, digital terrain models, aerial photographs, and field investigations. Detailed analyses include seismic facies and lithofacies interpretations; sedimentological and palaeo-environmental analyses; and radiocarbon dating of selected microfauna. Our results indicate that the Pleistocene sediments of the Summer Isles region, on-and offshore, can be subdivided into several lithostratigraphic formations on the basis of seismic character, geomorphology and sedimentology. These are: subglacial tills; ice-distal and glacimarine facies; ice-proximal and ice-contact facies; moraine assemblages; and Holocene basin fill. The submarine landscape is also notable for its large-scale massmovement events -the result of glaciodynamic, paraglacial or seismotectonic processes.Radiocarbon dating of marine shells indicate that deglaciation of this part of NW Scotland was ongoing between 14-13 ka BP -during the Lateglacial Interstadial (Greenland

We use ∼7000km 2 of high-resolution swath bathymetry data to describe and map the submarine glacial geomorphology, and reconstruct Late Pleistocene ice sheet flow configurations and retreat dynamics within the Inner Hebrides, western Scotland. Frequently dominated by outcrops of structurally complex bedrock, the seabed also comprises numerous assemblages of well-preserved glacigenic landforms typical of grounded ice sheet flow and punctuated ice-margin retreat. The occurrence and character of the glacially streamlined landforms is controlled in part by the shallow geology and topography, however these factors alone cannot account for the location, orientation, and configuration of the observed landforms. We attribute the distribution of these elongate streamlined landforms to the onset zone of the former Hebrides Ice Stream (HIS) – part of a major ice stream system that drained 5–10% of the last British–Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS). We suggest this geomorphic signature represents the transition from slow ‘sheet flow’ to ‘streaming flow’ as ice accelerated out from an environment characterized by numerous bedrock obstacles (e.g. islands, headlands), towards the smooth, sediment dominated shelf. The majority of streamlined landforms associated with the HIS indicate ice sheet flow to the southwest, with regional-scale topography clearly playing a major role in governing the configuration of flow. During maximal glacial conditions (∼29–23ka) we infer that the HIS merged with the North Channel-Malin Shelf Ice Stream to form a composite ice stream system that ultimately reached the continental shelf edge at the Barra-Donegal Trough-Mouth Fan. Taken collectively however, the pattern of landforms now preserved at seabed (e.g. convergent flow indicators, cross-cutting flow sets) is more indicative of a thinning ice mass, undergoing reorganization during overall ice sheet retreat (during latter stages of Late Weischselian glaciation). Suites of moraines overprinting the streamlined landforms suggest partial stabilization of the HIS prior to the ice sheet retreating to more isolated, topographically confined troughs and basins. Retreat from the shelf towards, and back into the Inner Hebrides may have been rapid due the prevalence of overdeepened troughs. Within the near-shore fjord-like troughs and deeps, basin-aligned streamlined landforms indicate the subsequent flow of thinner topographically partitioned ice masses, and overprinted moraines record further ice margin retreat, potentially along tide-water margins. This work provides the first geomorphological constraints for this large marine-influenced sector of the former BIIS. We also shed new light on the glacial geomorphic record found at the transition from terrestrial to marine continental-shelf settings, and examine the interplay between substrate geology, bed topography/bathymetry, and grounding-line positions – relationships which are important for characterizing contemporary marine ice sheet margins

Quantifying marine sedimentary carbon stocks is key to improving our understanding of long-term storage of carbon in the coastal ocean and to further constraining the global carbon cycle. Here we present a methodological approach which combines seismic geophysics and geochemical measurements to quantitatively estimate the total stock of carbon held within marine sediment. Through the application of this methodology to Loch Sunart, a fjord on the west coast of Scotland, we have generated the first full sedimentary carbon inventory for a fjordic system. The sediments of Loch Sunart hold 26.9 ± 0.5 Mt of carbon split between 11.5 ± 0.2 and 15.0 ± 0.4 Mt of organic and inorganic carbon respectively. These new quantitative estimates of carbon stored in coastal sediments are significantly higher than previous estimates. Through an area-normalised comparison to adjacent Scottish peatland carbon stocks, we have determined that these mid-latitude fjords are significantly more effective as carbon stores than their terrestrial counterparts. This initial work supports the concept that fjords are important environments for the burial and long-term storage of carbon and therefore should be considered and treated as unique environments within the global carbon cycle.

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