Four cores from the Antarctic continental margin located between 50 and 200km from the present-day ice-shelf edge, were selected from sedimentological and mass spectrometer analyses. The first stable isotope records of the Southern Polar Ocean can be correlated in detail with global isotope stratigraphy. Together with magnetostratigraphic, sedimentological and micropaleontological data, the record provides stratigraphic and paleoceanographic information back to the Jaramillo Subchron (910ka). Primary productivity was strictly reduced during glacials due to continuous ice coverage in the Weddell Sea. The climatic improvement at the beginning of an interglacial is associated with peak values in biologic activity lasting for about 15kyr. During the climatic cycle, mean sedimentation rates at the continental margin decrease with increasing distance from the continent from 5.2 to 1.3cm/kyr. Maximum sedimentation rates of 25cm/kyr at the beginning of an interglacial and minimum sedimentation rates of 0.6cm/kyr during glacial periods have been calculated. -from Authors