A provenance study of late Eocene marine sedimentary rocks drilled on the southeastern margin of the South Orkney microcontinent in Antarctica (Ocean Drilling Program Leg 113 Site 696) provides the first evidence for a continuity of widespread glacier calving along the coastline of the southern Weddell Sea embayment at least 2.5million yrs before the prominent oxygen isotope event at 34–33.5 Ma that is considered to mark the onset of widespread glaciation of the Antarctic continent.