oxygen isotope analyses and pleistocene ice volumes abstract the oxygen isotope record from fossil foraminifera in deep sea sediments is commonly used as a proxy for global ice volume the linkage between 18 o and ice volume however is probably nonlinear we have developed a simple numerical model of the isotopic response of the oceans to ice volume change the major features it simulates are 1 the changing mean isotopic composition of snow as a function of ice volume colder snow temperatures forced by climate change and higher elevation accumulation areas imply more negative mean 18 o 2 the nonequilibrium isotopic composition of ice sheets the past history of an ice sheet is integrated into its mean isotopic composition which introduces a lag of isotopic ice volume i e the measured 18 o record scaled to ice volume units behind true ice volume 3 selective preservation of isotopically more negative colder higher latitude ice this geographic effect can selectively amplify or dampen the isotopic response to the ice volume signal we illustrate the response of our model to simple hypothetical ice volume transitions of ice growth and ice decay sensitivity tests are illustrated for all model parameters the results suggest that oxygen isotope records reproduce the general patterns of ice volume change fairly accurately the foraminiferal isotope record however may misrepresent the true amplitude of the ice volume signal and lag true ice volume by 1000 to 3000 yr

mobility of mo u as and sb within modern turbidites modern turbidites uranium molybdenum arsenic antimony we present and discuss porewaters and sediment data of mn fe mo u as and sb within four recent turbidites from the capbreton canyon sw france the deposition of turbidites on continental margins exerts strong influence on the fate of trace metals causing trace metal migration and or immobilization the down core distribution of the elements here depends entirely of ongoing diagenetic processes rather than the diffusion of o2 the persistence of fe mn oxides under anoxic conditions led to anoxic reoxidation of numerous species as nh4 reduced s compounds and trace metals metal oxides thus control the immobilization of mo and as in the solid phase and the remobilization of u and sb to the porewaters although the low sulphide production prevents anoxic authigenesis of mo and as reducing conditions below each horizon rich in mn fe oxides resulted in u and sb accumulation the exact mechanisms of sb immobilization are not known but it is most certainly different from that of as the profile shapes of mn and u were used to estimate the age of the turbidite deposits which cannot be determined by conventional radionuclide methods our interpretations however depend on calculations of diffusion coefficient particularly for u a simple diffusive model applied to mn suggested that the age of the latest deposit noted t1 was 22 months this date is close to the time elapsed between the core sampling and the last known turbiditic event in the capbreton canyon i e martin storm 18 months using the u data set and depending on diffusion coefficients used the estimated ages of the deeper layers were 4 7 yr for t2 and 7 5 14 yr for t3 the reliability and precision of this new approach to date sediments at short timescales is limited by the ignorance of a precise value for u diffusion coefficient reducing uncertainty on u diffusion coefficient will greatly support application of the proposed approach

an oceanographic explanation for the apparent carbon isotope cadmium discordancy in the glacial antarctic the seeming discordance between the glacial to interglacial changes in the carbon isotope ratio and cadmium content of benthic foraminifera from the deep antarctic has cast a shadow on the reliability of these proxies as valid of paleocirculation indicators the problem is that while cadmium content shows little glacial to interglacial change lea and boyle 1990 boyle 1992 the carbon isotope change is larger than at any other place in the ocean curry et al 1988 innu et al 1990 charles and fairbanks 199o even after correction for the 0 35 glacial to interglacial change in the isotope ratio for mean ocean atmosphere carbon a difference of 0 5 to 0 6 remains on the basis of redfield ratios for today s ocean this is equivalent to a 25 increase in cadmium content which is not seen this puzzle has been with us for several years

deepwater source variations during the last climatic cycle and their impact on the global deepwater circulation the degree of similarity of the 13c records of the planktonic foraminiferal species n pachyderma and of the benthic foraminiferal genus cibicides in the high latitude basins of the world ocean is used as an indicator of the presence of deepwater sources during the last climatic cycle whereas continuous formation of deep water is recognized in the southern ocean the norwegian sea stopped acting as a sink for surface water during isotope stage 4 and the remainder of the last glaciation however deep water formed in the north atlantic south of the norwegian sea during the last climatic cycle as early as isotope substage 5d and this area was also the only active northern source during stages 4 2 a detailed reconstruction of the geographic distribution of 13c in benthic foraminifera in the atlantic ocean during the last glacial maximum shows that the most important deepwater mass originated from the southern ocean whereas the glacial north atlantic deep water cannot be traced south of 40 n at shallower depth an oxygenated 13c rich intermediate water mass extended from 45 n to 15 s in the pacific ocean a ventilation higher than the modern one was also found in open ocean in the depth range 700 2600 m and is best explained by stronger formation of intermediate water in high northern latitudes

oxygen isotope constraints on surface ocean temperatures published oxygen isotope results from benthic and planktonic foraminifera are used to constrain the extent to which surface ocean temperatures in the tropics changed between glacial and interglacial time the possible impacts of bioturbation and of the redistribution of 18o16o ratios within the sea putting aside the oxygen isotope results are consistent with the climap project conclusion that tropical ocean temperatures remained within 2 c of their present value

interhemispheric anti phasing of rainfall during the last glacial period abstract we have obtained a high resolution oxygen isotopic record of cave calcite from caverna botuvera 27 13 s 49 09 w southern brazil which covers most of the last 36 thousand years ka with an average resolution of a few to several decades the chronology was determined with 46 u th ages from two stalagmites tests for equilibrium conditions show that oxygen isotopic variations are primarily caused by climate change we interpret our record in terms of meteoric precipitation changes hence the variability of south american monsoon sam intensity the oxygen isotopic profile broadly follows local insolation changes and shows clear millennial scale variations during the last glacial period with amplitudes as large as 3 but with smaller centennial scale shifts 1 during the holocene the overall record is strikingly similar to but strongly anti correlated with a number of records from the northern hemisphere we compared our record to other precisely dated contemporaneous records from hulu cave eastern china minima in 18o wet periods intense sam at our site are synchronous with maxima in 18o dry periods weak east asian monsoon eam in eastern china within precise dating errors and vice versa this anti phased precipitation relationship between two low latitude locations may be interhemispheric in extent based on comparison with records from other sites precipitation anti phasing may be related to north south shifts in the mean position of the intertropical convergence zone itcz and asymmetry in hadley circulation in two hemispheres associated not with seasonal changes as observed today but with millennial scale climate shifts the millennial scale atmospheric see saw patterns that we observe could have important controls and feedbacks on climate within hemispheres because of water vapor s greenhouse properties

determination of δ18o of seawater in the deep ocean during the last glacial maximum we present a method for determining the 18o of seawater in the deep ocean during the last glacial maximum from the measured 18o values of deep sea pore fluids using data from deep sea drilling project dsdp site 576 in the western pacific this method yields a glacial to interglacial change in 18osw of 1 0 0 25 this value for 18osw is the first direct measurement of deep ocean 18o for the last glacial maximum and avoids the problems of spatial and temporal variability of the 18o of surface water implicit in previous determinations more precise higher resolution pore fluid measurements are required to improve this determination

reconstructing past particle fluxes in the tropical atlantic ocean using a research strategy analogous to modern sediment trap studies sediment accumulation patterns on submarine rises can be interpreted in terms of past ocean chemistry and circulation we have followed this research strategy to reconstruct the history of surface water productivity and deep water chemistry and circulation in the eastern equatorial atlantic sierra leone rise and western equatorial atlantic ceara rise during the last glacial maximum 18 000 b p on shallow sections of these rises at depths with little carbonate particle degradation we assume that the accumulation of skeletal carbonate approximates the carbonate production rate in surface water during the last glacial maximum the rate of carbonate productivity was lower in the eastern atlantic than it is today while the western atlantic exhibited no glacial interglacial difference in carbonate productivity based on the difference in carbonate accumulation rates between shallow and deep cores on the rises we observed greater dissolution in both basins during the last glaciation the eastern atlantic always had a lower rate of dissolution than the western atlantic despite having deep water with a lower 13c during the last glacial maximum organic carbon accumulation in the eastern atlantic increased with depth in the water column during the last glaciation suggesting that there was a bathymetric decrease in dissolved oxygen concentration at that time these observations are consistent with a glacial decrease in the production rate of northern source deep water during the last glaciation at that time the mixing zone between northern source and southern source deep water migrated to the north in the atlantic resulting in a greater proportion of corrosive southern source deep water in the western atlantic and entering the eastern atlantic through low latitude fracture zones today the ratio of northern and southern components entering the eastern atlantic is about 4 1 based on 13c and carbonate accumulation our best estimate of this ratio during the last glaciation is 1 1

pore fluid constraints on the temperature and oxygen isotopic composition of the glacial ocean pore fluids from the upper 60 meters of sediment 3000 meters below the surface of the tropical atlantic indicate that the oxygen isotopic composition 18 o of seawater at this site during the last glacial maximum was 0 8 0 1 per mil higher than it is today combined with the 18 o change in benthic foraminifera from this region the elevated ratio indicates that the temperature of deep water in the tropical atlantic ocean was 4 c colder during the last glacial maximum extrapolation from this site to a global average suggests that the ice volume contribution to the change in 18 o of foraminifera is 1 0 per mil which partially reconciles the foraminiferal oxygen isotope record of tropical sea surface temperatures with estimates from barbados corals and terrestrial climate proxies

oxygen and hydrogen isotopic ratios of water in precipitation beyond paleothermometry paleoclimatologists face a dilemma no sedimentary proxy is a pure recorder of quantitative climate information yet climate modelers and policy makers increasingly seek quantitative comparisons between instrumentally documented possibly anthropogenic climate changes and those produced naturally in the past in the second edition of his influential book bradley 1999 p 6 discussed the calibration of proxy records to learn past climate changes calibration involves using modern climatic records and proxy materials to understand how and to what extent proxy materials are climate dependent it is assumed that the modern relationships observed have operated unchanged throughout the period of interest the principle of uniformitarianism in other words one relates the characteristics of sediment to climate at different places for one time or at a place for short times and then uses that relation plus characteristics of older sediments to estimate the climatic conditions that produced those sedimentary characteristics bradley 1999 then extensively discussed the difficulties in applying this methodology in a complex world with imperfect recorders nonetheless the goal of using calibrated proxies for quantitative as well as qualitative paleoclimatic reconstruction is clear a prominent recent use of calibrated paleoclimatic data is the assessment of whether the probably anthropogenic warming of the latter 20th century moved beyond the band of natural variability of the prevailing climate bradley 2000 combined recent instrumental records with several longer proxy based reconstructions of surface temperature including that of mann et al 1999 based on this composite data set bradley 2000 argued that temperatures in the late 20th century were unique in the context of the entire millennium the proxy records were primarily based on tree ring data but included isotopic and major element geochemistry of corals and occurrence of melt layers and isotopic ratios of water in ice cores however broecker 2001 questioned the basis for the reconstruction of

reconstructing the paleoenvironment of east central europe in the late pleistocene using the oxygen and carbon isotopic signal of tooth in large mammal remains abstract stable carbon and oxygen isotope values 13 c 18 o of structural carbonate were determined in the bioapatite component of fossil teeth from the czech republic slovakia and hungary oxygen isotope compositions of enamel and dentin samples provide new quantitative records of the late pleistocene climate in east central europe ece these 18 o data were combined with records of oxygen isotope values of recent and paleogroundwaters to study the spatial patterns and temporal variations in the oxygen isotope composition of precipitation and the thermal climate over ece the new isotopic data suggest that surface air temperatures in the study region between 33 and 12 ka were 2 9 c colder than present specimens of woolly mammoth rhino and horse from the late pleistocene were primarily c 3 grazers

the information content of pore fluid δ18o and cl abstractpaleoceanographic proxies indicate that the ocean state during the last glacial maximum lgm differed from the modern ocean state depth profiles of ocean sediment pore fluid 18o and cl have been used to reconstruct the 18o and salinity at the lgm here it is investigated whether pore fluid profiles can constrain ocean 18o and salinity at other times and simultaneously their ability to constrain the lgm 18o and salinity an inverse framework is developed that relies on bayesian parameter estimation thus allowing formal separation of prior assumptions from the information in observations synthetic problems are used to explore the information about past ocean tracers that can be recovered from pore fluid profiles it is concluded that prior knowledge of deep ocean mixing time scales is essential to an accurate inverse estimate of lgm ocean salinity and 18o from modern pore fluid profiles the most recent 10 000 years of ocean salinity and 18o and the error in their estimates are bette

modeling the water masses of the atlantic ocean at the last glacial maximum 1 we produced gridded monthly sea surface boundary conditions for the atlantic ocean at the last glacial maximum lgm based on the sea surface temperature reconstruction of the glamap project we used an ocean general circulation model ogcm subject to these sea surface boundary conditions and a corresponding wind stress field from an atmospheric general circulation model to study the differences in the distribution of the main water masses between the lgm and the present our global ogcm is characterized by high vertical resolution low vertical diffusion and isopycnal mixing and hence allows for a realistic representation of the hydrology and circulation of the modern atlantic ocean according to a series of lgm experiments with an increasing sea surface salinity anomaly in the weddell sea the ventilated thermocline was colder than today by 2 3 c in the north atlantic ocean and in the experiment with the largest anomaly 1 0 beyond the global anomaly by 4 5 c in the south atlantic ocean its depth was reduced by 50 m on average most notably in the tropics in the north atlantic ocean the outcrop locations of the thermocline isopycnal surfaces migrated southward by 5 10 and the ventilation increased in the south atlantic ocean the mixed layer and thermocline water masses were dominated by cold water originating from drake passage and the import of warm water from the indian ocean was reduced to about 4 sv or 40 of its modern value antarctic intermediate water was colder by 3 4 c and could be traced as far as 10 n the meridional overturning rates of north atlantic deep water nadw and antarctic bottom water aabw in the atlantic ocean were similar to those of the present day experiment 9 10 sv and 4 sv respectively however nadw cooled by 2 5 c and aabw by 1 c aabw was near the freezing point of seawater at the surface and the saltiest water mass in the atlantic ocean even saltier than nadw we show that the differences between the lgm and the present day experiments can be traced back to the changes in the subpolar and interhemispheric sea surface density gradients

calibration of the c 14 timescale over the past 30 000 years using mass spectrometric u th ages from barbados corals uranium thorium ages obtained by mass spectrometry from corals raised off the island of barbados confirm the high precision of this technique over at least the past 30 000 years comparison of the u th ages with 14c ages obtained on the holocene samples shows that the u th ages are accurate because they accord with the dendrochronological calibration before 9 000 yr bp the 14c ages are systematically younger than the u th ages with a maximum difference of 3 500 yr at 20 000 yrbp the u th technique thus provides a way of calibrating the radiocarbon timescale beyond the range of dendrochronological calibration

reconstructing last glacial maximum bottom water salinities from deep sea sediment pore fluid profiles deep sea sediment pore fluids contain a record of past glaciations in their cl and 18 o the signal of the last glacial maximum lgm ice volume increase remains in the pore fluids as a local peak in each of these species using a one dimensional model to account for the diffusive and advective transport within the sediment column since the lgm the past bottom water salinity and 18 o seawater values can be estimated the model is most sensitive to the shape of the forcing function used to represent bottom water variations through time the effective diffusion coefficient and the scatter in the data assuming steady state compaction the model is relatively insensitive to the initial condition the bulk sedimentation rate and the assumed porosity profile though these last two are measured independently overall uncertainties in the relative cl increase at the lgm are between 0 1 and 0 5 where the mean ocean change is about 3 5

geochemical discrimination of clastic sedimentary rock sources abstract factors controlling the geochemistry of a clastic sedimentary rock can include 1 composition of source terrain 2 chemical weathering 3 hydraulic sorting 4 diagenesis 5 metamorphism and 6 hydrothermal alteration a linear solution inferring source terrain composition from geochemistry of the sediment is impossible in this multivariate system as several unknowns will commonly be present the use of graphical analysis of element pairs circumvents the problem chemically immobile elements will maintain invariant ratios during rock mass change caused by either addition or depletion of mobile elements this results in chemically immobile element scattergrams exhibiting linear trends along radians extending from the origin if the major mineral phases of the immobile elements have behaved in a hydrodynamically similar manner as chemically mobile element plots will produce a scatter of points this relationship can be used to test chemical immobility and similarity in hydrodynamic sorting history the constraint on analysis is that the source area must be compositionally uniform or the sediment well mixed prior to delivery to the basin a second technique using sio2 plots has also been developed to investigate element mobility and hydrodynamic behaviour of the mineral phases containing the elements sio2 immobile element plots result in a linear arrangement of points extending towards either 0 or 100 sio2 the 0 intercept position occurs for elements with major mineral phases concentrated in sand the 100 intercept for those concentrated in clays plotting chemically mobile elements produces different patterns and this can be used to gain information on alteration and sorting history elemental ratios for chemically immobile elements with similar hydrodynamic behaviour will be the same as those for the weighted average composition of the source material this provides a powerful tool for deducing source terrain from sediment geochemistry techniques outlined above were tested on archaean metasandstones from superior province canada immobile element ratio diagrams for nb al ti and zr al ti indicate that a calc alkaline extrusive intrusive suite lying to the north of the study area was the source and not five other volcanic suites in the region this conclusion agrees with previous clast lithology studies and accentuates the applicability of the geochemical techniques

evidence for a prolonged retroflection of the north brazil current during glacial stages the importance of the role played by the tropics in driving and propagating climate change between hemispheres has long been the focus of attention in a bid to evaluate ocean atmosphere interactions on glacial interglacial timescales the amazon fan and ceara rise in the western equatorial atlantic ocean lie directly in the flowpath of the north brazil current nbc which as a conduit for the cross equatorial transport of heat and salinity is a key component for the heat budget of the north atlantic mg ca palaeothermometry and stable oxygen isotope analysis of planktonic foraminifera sampled from 15 sites across the amazon fan and ceara rise reveal variations in oceanic surface currents and of the dispersal of freshwater from the river amazon over five timeslices modern early holocene younger dryas late glacial and marine isotope stage 3 sea surface temperature reconstructions reveal progressive climatic amelioration over the last similar to 30 ka indicating a temperature increase of similar to 3 2 1 1 degrees c since the late glacial in conjunction with this warming values of delta delta o 18 a proxy for water column stratification indicates increased vertical mixing of the glacial ocean the spatial distribution of values of delta 18 w the isotopic composition of ambient seawater is used to infer surface current variations and demonstrates an oceanward shift in the river outflow plume in cold climates representing a prolongation or possibly permanent continuation in the duration of the seasonal retroflection of the nbc causing the curtailment of cross equatorial transport a prolongation of this retroflection could have resulted from a mean southward migration of the southern boundary of the itcz c 2011 elsevier b v all rights reserved

high resolution chemostratigraphy of quaternary distal turbidites a case study of new methods for the analysis and correlation of barren sequences

hydrospheric transports the oxygen isotope record and tropical sea surface temperatures during the last glacial maximum a model is developed to consider explicitly the effect of glacial to holocene changes in transports of fresh and salt water on the distribution of oxygen isotopes in seawater and therefore on the calibration of the foraminiferal 18o paleothermometer the published foraminiferal isotopic record is shown to be consistent with glacial surface temperatures at low latitudes cooler than today by about 4 c in the atlantic and indian oceans and about 2 c in the pacific given glacial transport patterns supported by the geologic record if in addition net vapor transport from the indian and atlantic oceans to the pacific was enhanced significantly during glacial times relative to today the isotopic record would be consistent with a sea surface cooler by up to 5 c throughout the tropics at the last glacial maximum as expected based on proxies for continental surface temperatures

assessing the suitability of holocene environments along the central belize coast central america for the reconstruction of hurricane records since the belize coast was repeatedly affected by hurricanes and the paleohurricane record for this region is poor sediment cores from coastal lagoon environments along the central belize coast have been examined in order to identify storm deposits the paleohurricane record presented in this study spans the past 8000 years and exhibits three periods with increased evidences of hurricane strikes occurring at 6000 4900 4200 3600 and 2200 1500 cal yr bp two earlier events around 7100 and 7900 cal yr bp and more recent events around 180 cal yr bp and during modern times have been detected sand layers redeposited corals and lagoon shell concentrations have been used as proxies for storm deposition additionally hiatuses and reversed ages may indicate storm influence while sand layers and corals represent overwash deposits the lagoon shell concentrations which mainly comprise the bivalve anomalocardia cuneimeris and cerithid gastropods have been deposited due to changes in lagoon salinity during and after storm landfalls comparison with other studies reveals similarities with one record from belize but hardly any matches with other published records the potential for paleotempestology reconstructions of the barrier lagoon complexes along the central belize coast differs depending on geomorphology and deposition of washovers in the lagoon basins is limited probably due to the interplay of biological geological and geomorphological processes