Crag-and-tail Features on the Amundsen Sea Continental Shelf, West Antarctica

On parts of glaciated continental margins, especially the inner shelves around Antarctica, grounded ice has removed pre-existing sedimentary cover, leaving subglacial bedforms on eroded substrates (Anderson et al. 2001; Wellner et al. 2001). While the dominant subglacial bedforms often follow a distinct, relatively uniform pattern that can be related to overall trends in palaeo-ice flow and substrate geology (Wellner et al. 2006), others are more randomly distributed and may reflect local substrate variations. Here we describe and discuss examples of large, isolated crag-and-tail features that are recognized on the Amundsen Sea continental shelf.