This data publication contains biostratigraphic age events for the CIROS-1 drill core, updated age ranges for a suite of samples from the McMurdo erratics sample collection, age-depth tie points for CIROS-1, CRP-2/2A, DSDP 270, DSDP 274, ANDRILL 2A and ANDRILL 1B, and glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) abundances and indices for samples from the McMurdo erratics, CIROS-1, CRP-2/2A, DSDP 270, DSDP 274, ANDRILL 2A, and ANDRILL 1B. All sample sites are in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica. The McMurdo erratics are glacial erratics collected in the McMurdo Sound region between 1991 and 1996 (Harwood and Levy, 2000). The CIROS-1 drill core was collected from McMurdo sound in 1986 with samples spanning the upper Eocene to lower Miocene. CRP-2/2A drill core was collected in 1999 from offshore Victoria Land with samples for this study from the upper Oligocene-lower Miocene. DSDP Site 270 was recovered from the Eastern Basin of the central Ross Sea in 1973, with samples spanning the upper Oligocene-lower Miocene. DSDP Site 274 was drilled on the lower continental rise in the northwestern Ross Sea in 1973, and samples for this study have been taken from the middle Miocene sections of the drill core. The ANDRILL-2A core was recovered in 2007 from Southern McMurdo Sound, samples span the lower Miocene to middle Miocene and data was originally published in Levy et al. (2016). The ANDRILL-IB core was drilled from the McMurdo Ice Shelf in 2006, samples are compiled from the Plio-Pleistocene section of the core and were originally published in McKay et al. (2012).Biostratigraphic age events are described for CIROS-1, expanding on and updating previously published age models and biostratigraphic ranges. Ages are also revised for the McMurdo erratics by updating the ages of the biostratigraphic markers described by (Harwood and Levy (2000) to more recently published age ranges. Age models for the sample sites are developed using published age datums and the Bayesian age-depth modelling functionality in the R package Bchron (Haslett and Parnell, 2008) to ensure a consistent approach for assigning ages to core depths between datums. GDGT abundances and indices for Ross Sea sites are presented to reconstruct ocean temperatures over the Cenozoic era. Detailed methodology for the processing and analysis of samples for GDGTs is described in the methods section of supplement paper.

Antarctica New Zealand Sir Robin Irvine PhD Scholarship awarded to B.D. Scientific Committee of Antarctic Research Fellowship awarded to B.D. New Zealand Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment through the Antarctic Science Platform (ANTA1801), and Contract C05X1001