Remnants of Antarctic vegetation on King George Island during the early Miocene Melville Glaciation Sophie Warny a *, C. Madison Kymes a , Rosemary A. Askin b , Krzysztof P. Krajewski c and Philip J. Bart a a Department of Geology and Geophysics, Louisiana State University, E-235 Howe-Russell, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA; b Consultant, 1930 Bunkhouse Drive, Jackson, Wyoming 83001, USA; c Institute of Geological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00-818 Warszawa, Poland Palynological analyses of 12 samples from the Cape Melville Formation, which crops out on easternmost King George Island, Antarctica, provide new information on the type of vegetation that covered the South Shetland Islands during the early Miocene Melville Glaciation, c. 2321 Ma. The assemblage recovered was mostly characterised by in situ algae such as leiospheres along with acanthomorph acritarchs, both glacial indicators. The sparse in situ terrestrial palynomorph assemblage included tundra-indicative moss spores Coptospora sp., rare podocarp conifer and various angiosperm pollen. The latter includes pollen of several species of Nothofagidites, plus rare Asteraceae, Caryophyllaceae (Colobanthus-type) and Chenopodipollis. The majority of the palynomorphs recovered are interpreted as reworked, denoting glacial scouring and redeposition from various sites in the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands. These reworked palynomorphs are of Permian to Paleogene age. This reworked component provides insight into the potential sources of reworking, and is consistent with multiple cycles of glacial advances to the Melville Peninsula at the time of deposition. The penecontemporaneous palynomorphs recovered provide new data on the climatic regime and glacial intensification during the early Miocene on King George Island. Keywords: vegetational history; King George Island; Antarctica; Miocene ice-house climate; Melville Glaciation 1. Introduction King George Island (KGI) is the largest island of the South Shetland Islands (SSI) magmatic arc that extends parallel to the northern Antarctic Peninsula and is detached from it by a young back-arc rift struc- ture of the Bransfield Strait (Figure 1A and B). The arc developed as a result of subduction of the Pacific litho- sphere (Phoenix Plate) beneath the continental crust of the Antarctic Peninsula (Barker 1982; Guterch et al. 1985). It is largely composed of Mesozoic and Ceno- zoic eruptives and associated pyroclastics that are cut by hypabyssal and abyssal intrusions (Smellie et al. 1984; Haase et al. 2012). A trend from older to younger magmatic activity is generally observed from southwest to northeast along the arc (Anderson 1999). This has led to a concentration of Cenozoic volcanic rocks on KGI (Pankhurst & Smellie 1983; Machado et al. 2005), with maximum eruptive activity during the Eocene (Wang et al. 2009; Nawrocki et al. 2011). The Eocene volcanism has, in part, caused the poor preservation of Permian to Cretaceous polynomorphs, often found burnt beyond recognition in many KGI and surround- ing sequences. During the Eocene epoch, the island most likely had a mountainous landscape with stratovolcanoes and lava fields that were variably covered by Valdivian-type for- ests (a forest found today in Chile and in parts of Argen- tina), wetlands and freshwater environments (Poole et al. 2001; Hunt & Poole 2003). A decrease of volcanic activity close to the Eocene/Oligocene boundary coin- cided with northward progradation of the Antarctic ice- sheet and marine transgressions (Baker 2007; Davies et al. 2012). Parts of KGI were covered by ice and/or inundated during the Oligocene and early Miocene, giv- ing way to glacial, glaciomarine and marine sedimenta- tion (Troedson & Riding 2002; Troedson & Smellie 2002). These deposits are known from coastal exposures and nunataks in the southeastern part of KGI (Figure 1C). The sedimentary succession embraces the Oligocene Polonez Cove Formation (Chopin Ridge Group) occurring between Admiralty Bay and King George Bay (Figure 1C), and the Late Oligocene Destruction Bay Formation and the earliest Miocene Cape Melville Formation (Moby Dick Group) occurring between Sherratt Bay and Destruction Bay (Figures 1C and 2; Birkenmajer 2001 and references therein). *Corresponding author. Email: swarny@lsu.edu Ó 2015 AASP  The Palynological Society Palynology, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01916122.2014.999954