CONCLUSIONS

1. The diatom content of the sediments suggests sea ice was only a significant limitation on productivity during the Pleistocene (1.5 Ma to present).
2. Fine grain size implies weak bottom currents throughout (7 Ma to present).
3. Presence of IRD throughout implies the Antarctic Peninsula was not deglaciated for any significant period during the "warm Pliocene."
4. Intermittent supply of fine terrigenous sediment to the rise is consistent with the depositional model showing the ice sheet grounded to the shelf edge during glacials.
5. Processes related to submarine channel switching and lobe progradation during parts of the early Pliocene and Miocene may have masked climatic control on deposition at this distal site.

Some answers may be offered to the questions listed in the "Introduction".

1. The present depositional system is a partial analog for the older depositional environment. There is no evidence for glacial-interglacial cyclicity in sea-ice cover prior to 1.5 Ma. Bottom currents no stronger than those measured today are likely to have prevailed for at least the last 7 m.y. The cyclic provision of glacial sediment to the shelf edge did occur, but not usually at the 100-k.y. period which prevailed in the late Quaternary.
2. Deposition was cyclic at least down to 300 mbsf (7 Ma), though this does not include the "lower part of the drift section"; the sediments studied here are all within the "drift-maintenance stage" of Rebesco et al. (1997). Cycle frequencies are 100 k.y. in part of the upper Pliocene but elsewhere are shorter and irregular. This may reflect sedimentation processes intrinsic to the shelf-slope rise depositional system, rather than purely orbital/climatic control.
3. The onset of the present stage of continental glaciation has not been recognized in the upper 300 m of Site 1095. It is possible the boundary between lithologic Units II and III at 436 mbsf (Shipboard Scientific Party, 1999) may represent such a change, but this is beyond the scope of the present study.