The dataset comprises of compilations of new and published age data constraining glacier advance, retreat and aquatic moss layers in lakes from the South Shetland Islands. The data were used in data analysis in the following manuscripts to constrain deglaciation and glacier dynamics on Potter Peninsula and Fildes Peninsula, King George Island South Shetland Islands: Heredia Barion P, Roberts SJ, Spiegel C, Binnie SA, Wacker L, Davies J, et al. (submitted - a) Mid-late Holocene deglaciation and glacier readvances on the Fildes Peninsula, King George Island, NW Antarctic Peninsula. The Holocene. Heredia Barion P, Strelin JA, Roberts SJ, Spiegel C, Wacker L, Niedermann S, et al. (submitted - b). Holocene deglaciation, glacial dynamics and the geomorphology of Potter Peninsula, King George Island (Isla 25 de Mayo), NW Antarctic Peninsula. Frontiers in Earth Science. Data collected in this study were funded by: Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra (CICTERRA), the Direccion Nacional del Antartico/Instituto Antartico Argentino (DNA/IAA) in the framework of the Project PICTA, 2011 - 0102, IAA "Geomorfologia y Geologia Glaciar del Archipielago James Ross e Islas Shetland del Sur, Sector Norte de la Peninsula Antartica"; the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) research program Polar regions and Coasts in a changing Earth System (PACES II); IMCONet (FP7 IRSES, action no. 318718); the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC/BAS-CGS Grant no.81); the NERC/BAS science programmes CACHE-PEP: Natural climate variability - extending the Americas palaeoclimate transect through the Antarctic Peninsula to the pole and GRADES-QWAD: Quaternary West Antarctic Deglaciations. We thank the crews of the Argentine research station "Carlini" and the adjoined German Dallmann-Labor (AWI) Laboratory, the Uruguayan research station "Artigas", the Russian Bellingshausen Station, the Chinese Great Wall Station, Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva, the Brazilian Navy Almirante Maximiano, the UK Navy HMS Endurance and NERC/BAS James Clark Ross for logistical support during the 2006, 2011, 2014 and 2015 field seasons.

We present a new bathymetric compilation of the South Shetland Islands here defined by the following bounding box: 63 to 53.3 W, 63.5 to 60.5 S. This bathymetry grid was compiled from a variety of multibeam swath bathymetry data acquired during 76 different cruises (see lineage). The data is available as a grid of approximately 100 m resolution in two different formats: a GMT-compatible (2-D) NetCDF and Arc/Info and ArcView ASCII grid format using geographic coordinates on the WGS84 datum.

The dataset comprises of lake site photos, data and multiproxy data from Lake L15 (aka GPS Lake), a small lake basin at 62.24057 S, 58.6776 W on Potter Peninsula, King George Island, South Shetland Islands. The data have been used to constrain deglaciation and glacier dynamics on Potter Peninsula. Data for the Lake L15 (GPS Lake) sediment record consist of downcore measurements of chronology, geochemistry, and sedimentology proxy data collected from the depocentre in November 2011. Data collected in this study were funded by: Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra (CICTERRA), the Direccion Nacional del Antartico/Instituto Antartico Argentino (DNA/IAA) in the framework of the Project PICTA, 2011 - 0102, IAA "Geomorfologia y Geologia Glaciar del Archipielago James Ross e Islas Shetland del Sur, Sector Norte de la Peninsula Antartica"; the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) research program Polar regions and Coasts in a changing Earth System (PACES II); IMCONet (FP7 IRSES, action no. 318718); the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC/BAS-CGS Grant no.81); the NERC/BAS science programmes CACHE-PEP: Natural climate variability - extending the Americas palaeoclimate transect through the Antarctic Peninsula to the pole and GRADES-QWAD: Quaternary West Antarctic Deglaciations. We thank the crews of the Argentine research station "Carlini" and the adjoined German Dallmann-Labor (AWI) Laboratory, the Uruguayan research station "Artigas", the Russian Bellingshausen Station, the Chinese Great Wall Station, Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva, the Brazilian Navy Almirante Maximiano, the UK Navy HMS Endurance and NERC/BAS James Clark Ross for logistical support during the 2006, 2011, 2014 and 2015 field seasons.

The dataset comprises of chronostratigraphic data from the Fildes Peninsula, King George Island, South Shetland Islands. The data have been used to constrain deglaciation and climate-glacier dynamics on the Fildes Peninsula. These data include C-14 density probability phases. Data was compiled with with Potter Peninsula and King George Island data and a non-parametric phase model applied. Data collected in this study were funded by: Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra (CICTERRA), the Direccion Nacional del Antartico/Instituto Antartico Argentino (DNA/IAA) in the framework of the Project PICTA, 2011 - 0102, IAA "Geomorfologia y Geologia Glaciar del Archipielago James Ross e Islas Shetland del Sur, Sector Norte de la Peninsula Antartica"; the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) research program Polar regions and Coasts in a changing Earth System (PACES II); IMCONet (FP7 IRSES, action no. 318718); the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC/BAS-CGS Grant no.81); the NERC/BAS science programmes CACHE-PEP: Natural climate variability - extending the Americas palaeoclimate transect through the Antarctic Peninsula to the pole and GRADES-QWAD: Quaternary West Antarctic Deglaciations. We thank the crews of the Argentine research station "Carlini" and the adjoined German Dallmann-Labor (AWI) Laboratory, the Uruguayan research station "Artigas", the Russian Bellingshausen Station, the Chinese Great Wall Station, Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva, the Brazilian Navy Almirante Maximiano, the UK Navy HMS Endurance and NERC/BAS James Clark Ross for logistical support during the 2006, 2011, 2014 and 2015 field seasons.

The dataset comprises of lake site photos, sediment data and multiproxy data from Lake L5 (aka Matias Lake), a small lake basin at 62.2450 S, 58.6655 W on Potter Peninsula, King George Island, South Shetland Islands. The data have been used to constrain deglaciation and glacier dynamics on Potter Peninsula. Data for the Lake L5 (Matias Lake) sediment record consist of downcore measurements of chronology, geochemistry, and sedimentology proxy data collected from the depocentre in November 2011. Data collected in this study were funded by: Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra (CICTERRA), the Direccion Nacional del Antartico/Instituto Antartico Argentino (DNA/IAA) in the framework of the Project PICTA, 2011 - 0102, IAA "Geomorfologia y Geologia Glaciar del Archipielago James Ross e Islas Shetland del Sur, Sector Norte de la Peninsula Antartica"; the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) research program Polar regions and Coasts in a changing Earth System (PACES II); IMCONet (FP7 IRSES, action no. 318718); the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC/BAS-CGS Grant no.81); the NERC/BAS science programmes CACHE-PEP: Natural climate variability - extending the Americas palaeoclimate transect through the Antarctic Peninsula to the pole and GRADES-QWAD: Quaternary West Antarctic Deglaciations. We thank the crews of the Argentine research station "Carlini" and the adjoined German Dallmann-Labor (AWI) Laboratory, the Uruguayan research station "Artigas", the Russian Bellingshausen Station, the Chinese Great Wall Station, Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva, the Brazilian Navy Almirante Maximiano, the UK Navy HMS Endurance and NERC/BAS James Clark Ross for logistical support during the 2006, 2011, 2014 and 2015 field seasons.

The dataset comprises of sedimentological, geochemical, biological and chronological data from a sediment core record extracted from Kiteschsee Lake sediment, Fildes Peninsula, King George Island, South Shetland Islands. We undertook multi-proxy analyses (diatom, grain size, geochemical and sedimentological) on a 77 cm-long sediment record extracted from the flat-bottomed eastern basin depocentre of Kiteschsee Lake and compared data obtained with published lake records from the Fildes Peninsula. Data collected in this study were funded by: Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra (CICTERRA), the Direccion Nacional del Antartico/Instituto Antartico Argentino (DNA/IAA) in the framework of the Project PICTA, 2011 - 0102, IAA "Geomorfologia y Geologia Glaciar del Archipielago James Ross e Islas Shetland del Sur, Sector Norte de la Peninsula Antartica"; the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) research program Polar regions and Coasts in a changing Earth System (PACES II); IMCONet (FP7 IRSES, action no. 318718); the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC/BAS-CGS Grant no.81); the NERC/BAS science programmes CACHE-PEP: Natural climate variability - extending the Americas palaeoclimate transect through the Antarctic Peninsula to the pole and GRADES-QWAD: Quaternary West Antarctic Deglaciations. We thank the crews of the Argentine research station "Carlini" and the adjoined German Dallmann-Labor (AWI) Laboratory, the Uruguayan research station "Artigas", the Russian Bellingshausen Station, the Chinese Great Wall Station, Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva, the Brazilian Navy Almirante Maximiano, the UK Navy HMS Endurance and NERC/BAS James Clark Ross for logistical support during the 2006, 2011, 2014 and 2015 field seasons.

The dataset comprises of chronostratigraphic data from the Fildes Peninsula, King George Island, South Shetland Islands. The data consists of Radiocarbon (C-14) ages, which were obtained by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating of marine mollusc shells, terrestrial mosses and seaweed layers embedded in sediments, and Cosmogenic Helium-3 (He-3) nuclide surface exposure dating (CSED). The data have been used to constrain deglaciation and climate-glacier dynamics on the Fildes Peninsula. Data collected in this study were funded by: Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra (CICTERRA), the Direccion Nacional del Antartico/Instituto Antartico Argentino (DNA/IAA) in the framework of the Project PICTA, 2011 - 0102, IAA "Geomorfologia y Geologia Glaciar del Archipielago James Ross e Islas Shetland del Sur, Sector Norte de la Peninsula Antartica"; the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) research program Polar regions and Coasts in a changing Earth System (PACES II); IMCONet (FP7 IRSES, action no. 318718); the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC/BAS-CGS Grant no.81); the NERC/BAS science programmes CACHE-PEP: Natural climate variability - extending the Americas palaeoclimate transect through the Antarctic Peninsula to the pole and GRADES-QWAD: Quaternary West Antarctic Deglaciations. We thank the crews of the Argentine research station "Carlini''" and the adjoined German Dallmann-Labor (AWI) Laboratory, the Uruguayan research station "Artigas", the Russian Bellingshausen Station, the Chinese Great Wall Station, Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva, the Brazilian Navy Almirante Maximiano, the UK Navy HMS Endurance and NERC/BAS James Clark Ross for logistical support during the 2006, 2011, 2014 and 2015 field seasons.

Biological tissue samples from octopus species collected from the Southern Ocean, James Clark Ross cruise no. JR147/145. A large collection of tissue samples from deep sea and Antarctic target groups had already been collected in previous cruises. The specific objective of this cruise was to target three species of octopus, Pareledone charcoti (peak abundance 100m depth), Pareledone turqueti (peak abundance 100-200m) and Adelieledone polymorpha (peak abundance 250-350m), for the micro-evolution (i.e. population genetics) component of the project. Most of the octopuses were captured with an otter trawl, due to its relatively large sampling area and the fact that it can be trawled quickly (4 knots) which prevents octopuses from swimming out of it.