Environmental Processes, Biodiversity and Changes in Admiralty Bay, King George Island, Antarctica

The isolation of Antarctica from South America during the Oligocene (~35 mya) formed the Southern Ocean, generated the northward flow of the Atlantic Antarctic Bottom Water, and numerous unique geological and oceanic processes (e.g. an active spreading centre in the Bransfield Strait, ridge trench collision, gas hydrates on modern sediments, and complex circulation) along the northern end of the Antarctic Peninsula in particular (Barker and Burrell 1982; Pearse et al. 2001; Barker and Thomas 2004; Thomson 2004; Turner et al. 2009).