This award is for support of a project to study nearshore environmental records from emerged fossil shells along the Victoria Land coast. Shell growth, x-ray diffraction, elemental and oxygen isotope analyses will be made on bulk shell samples of circumpolar bivalve molluscs. Combined with their beach elevations and radiocarbon ages, these fossil shell datasets will provide information that can be used to interpret the rates and mechanisms associated with the Holocene retreat of the West Antarctic ice sheet.
