Because of its polar climate, large ice sheets, and highly variable glacial maritime setting, the seafloor surrounding Antarctica offers a unique opportunity for studying glacial-marine sedimentation under extreme climatic conditions. It also provides valuable information about the continent's glacial and climatic record, provided we know how to interpret the sedimentary record properly.

The results of early studies of sediment cores acquired from the Antarctic continental margin are summarized in a number of depositional models that attempt to illustrate sedimentary processes on the continental shelf. Most of these are two-dimensional models.

Carey and Ahmad (1961) published a provocative, widely cited glacial-marine depositional model that inspired most later models, even though their model predates the acquisition of sediment cores on the continental shelf. Anderson's (1972b) model was the first constructed using sediment cores obtained from the Antarctic continental shelf. The model utilizes foraminiferal assemblages and associated core lithologies to define subglacial, sub-ice shelf, and open shelf facies in the eastern Weddell Sea and relates these facies to changing glacial and oceanographic conditions. Later, Anderson and colleagues (1983b) constructed a generalized facies model that emphasizes the different glacial-marine environments on the Antarctic continental shelf. Their model illustrates the general facies architecture associated with advancing and retreating marine ice sheets onto the shelf (based on sediment cores from the Ross Sea), continental shelves that bound mountainous coasts (based on a case study in the Antarctic Peninsula region), and continental shelves where the ice sheet is grounded near the coast (based on an analysis of sediment cores from the Wilkes Land continental shelf).