Antarctica Contributions to Global Earth Sciences

The almost completely ice covered Antarctic continent and the seasonally to permanently ice covered Southern Ocean surrounding it, have in no way lost their fascination and interest for geoscientists. With increasing scientific and public awareness for global change matters, the Antarctic region receives particular interest.Ongoing research on marine sediments, lake sediments and ice cores shed more and more light on climate history not only of the Antarctic region in particular but also on a global scale. For decades, Antarctic hard rock research relied on comparisons of the continent’s scarce outcrops with those of the better exposed parts of Gondwana for an understanding of the geology of Antarctica. More recently, the results of broader Antarctic research, including of the deep ocean floor, have been introduced to help understanding Gondwana accretion and dispersal as a whole.
340 participants from 28 countries registered for the IX International Symposium of Antarctic Earth Sciences, held in the magnificent premises of the Potsdam University (see group photo) from 8 to 12 September 2003. The aim of the conference was to focus on the role of the Antarctic continent and the surrounding Southern Ocean in global geodynamics and paleoenvironmental evolution. This was pursued by a number of major themes, each subdivided in a number of sessions. Oral presentations added up to 175 and about 200 posters and maps, in three poster sessions, were contributed. Out of these, about 80 contributions were submitted for publication in the Proceedings Volume and 60 papers were finally accepted after peer-review.At the beginning of planning for the IX International Symposium of Antarctic Earth Sciences the Steering Committee had discussed if it might be more appropriate to publish all submitted papers in one “big, more multidisciplinary volume” – as was the tradition so far – or better to publish in various more specific journals in order to maximise impact. There was a long controversial discussion which, in the end, reached no conclusion and the subject was kept open for consideration of the National Organising Committee, which finally decided to return to the concept of all earlier Antarctic earth science symposia.

As a consequence, you have this book in your hands, containing some 60 papers covering the traditionally wide field of Antarctic geoscientific research. The volume is organized into eight chapters, which to a large extent, follow the major themes of the symposium.

The contributions to the session “James Ross and Seymour Islands” and the results of the workshop on “Seymour and James Ross Island paleoenvironments across the K/T boundary”, held before the symposium in Potsdam, will be published by the convenors in a separate volume entitled “Cretaceous–Tertiary high-latitude paleoenvironments, James Ross Basin, Antarctica”.

Another special workshop on “East–West Antarctic Tectonics and Gondwana Break-up 60° W to 30° E” was held in the general framework of this ISAES conference. Seven papers, dealing with new geophysical interpretations and regional compilations of the East Antarctic continental margin from the Weddell Sea to the Cosmonaut Sea off Enderby Land, were published separately in a special issue of Marine Geophysical Researches, Vol. 25 (2005).