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  • The files include full analytical details and datasets from the laboratories used for the acquisition of U-Pb zircon geochronology and Lu-Hf isotope geochemistry. The data were collected in the interval September 2022 to January 2023 across a number of laboratories: Stockholm, University College London and Australian National University (U-Pb zircon geochronology); British Geological Survey (Lu-isotopes). The analyses were conducted by Teal Riley (Stockholm, British Geological Survey), Ian Millar (Australian National University) and Andrew Carter (University College London). The analyses were conducted to examine the provenance and depositional history of the Fossil Bluff Group fore arc basin sediments of Alexander Island. NERC N-ALI funding to Geology & Geophysics.

  • The chemistry of mafic volcanic rocks and minor intrusions erupted on continents can be used to define the composition and history of subcontinental asthenospheric and lithospheric mantle domains. We have produced new and collated published data for Antarctica in order to identify mantle domains beneath the continent. Suitable material archived at the British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, the result of previous geological research, was sampled and prepared for petrographic and geochemical analysis in the intervening period between field collection and sample arrival in the United Kingdom. Field information, petrography and raw geochemical data obtained from XRF (X-ray fluorescence), ICPMS (Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometer), TIMS (Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer), Ar/Ar analysis and Electron Microprobe analysis of rock samples collected from Palmer Land and Graham Land was used to define a geochemical profile of crust/mantle architecture beneath the Antarctic Peninsula.

  • This dataset contains geochemistry measurements and fossil diatom counts made on a sediment core from La Grange Cop lake, Marion Island (46deg94S, 37deg60E, 60 m above sea level). The dataset consists of diatom relative frequencies, diatom principal components analysis (PCA), and diatom-inferred conductivity, ITRAX scanning XRF elemental percentages and XRF PCA, C%, N%, and delta13C measurements, and magnetic susceptibility measurements. Ages of the sediment samples were assigned based on an age depth model derived from 210Pb, 137Cs, and 14C measurements and span the last c. 700 years. This project was funded by UK Natural Environment Research Council Grant NE/K004514/1 to Dominic A Hodgson and a Research Foundation-Flanders travel bursary to Elie Verleyen.

  • The British Antarctic Survey holds one of the most extensive collections of Antarctic rocks and fossils anywhere in the world. These are predominately from the Antarctic Peninsula region and Scotia Arc, although there is also important material from areas such as the Ellsworth Mountains, Marie Byrd Land and the Transantarctic Mountains. Some of these specimens go back to the very earliest days of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in the 1940s, and include collections made by the pioneer geologists at bases such as Hope Bay and Deception Island. Right from the outset, every specimen collected in Antarctica has been numbered and catalogued, and a vast reference archive is now available for use by the geoscience community. We currently have information relating to 150,000 field samples often with associated analysis data such as geochemistry. Additionally we hold a variety of data for nearly 500 marine cores. Metadata and data are stored digitally within a number of Oracle 10g database tables and for some datasets such as the type and figured fossil collection there is external access through a web interface. However, a significant number of datasets exist only in analog form and are held within the BAS archives organised by individual geologist. This abstract acts as an overview of the BAS geological data - both terrestrial and marine.