cretaceous ammonites from fuerteventura canary islands mesozoic deep water sediments occurring on the island of fuerteventura were deposited near the continent ocean boundary adjacent to the african margin during tertiary times they were uplifted and intruded by ultramafic mafic and alkaline plutons and dykes and are now exposed as part of the basal complex of the island these sediments reflect more or less continuous hemipelagic and turbiditic deposition during most of jurassic and cretaceous times two ammonites described in this paper document a valanginian to hauterivian age for part of the lower cretaceous siliciclastic turbidites and a latest albian to early cenomanian age for part of the upper cretaceous hemipelagic limestones

present day south american climate abstract this paper documents the main features of the climate and climate variability over south america on the basis of instrumental observations gathered during the 20th century it should provide a modern reference framework for paleoclimate research in south america targeting high resolution proxies over the past few centuries several datasets suitable for present day climate research are first described highlighting their advantages as well as their limitations we then provide a basic physical understanding of the mean annual cycle of the precipitation and atmospheric circulation over the continent and the adjacent oceans in particular the diversity of precipitation temperature and wind patterns is interpreted in terms of the long meridional extent of the continent and the disruption of the large scale circulation caused by the andes cordillera the contrasting oceanic boundary conditions and the landmass distribution similarly the intensity and timing of the interannual and interdecadal climatic fluctuations exhibit considerable geographical dependence as some regions are more influenced by large scale phenomena rooted in the tropical oceans while others are more influenced by high latitude phenomena the impact of these large scale phenomena over south america is documented by a regression analysis between selected atmospheric indices and the precipitation and temperature fields we have included a discussion on the seasonality and long term stability of such impacts and complemented our general description by an updated review of the literature on climate variability over specific regions

observations on late pleistocene cooling and precipitation in the lowland neotropics although accurate reconstructions of amazonian palaeoclimates are central to under standing the distribution and history of neotropical biodiversity current reconstructions based on proxy data are discordant and subject to intense debate we review some current thinking in amazonian climatology and incorporate some new ideas in an attempt to explain the apparently con tradictory records of palaeoprecipitation from across the amazon basin we suggest that palaeoecol ogists need to recognise that organised convective radiation the process that induces most wet season rainfall in amazonia should be treated as a phenomenon related to but separate from the passage of the inter tropical convergence zone itcz decoupling itcz migration from larger con vective activity provides a mechanism to account for observed palaeoclimatic heterogeneity patterns of observed precipitation change are consistent with the long term persistence of closed forest across much of amazonia indicating that the greatest changes in precipitation during the last glacial max imum came during the wet season which would have little negative impact on forest extent neo tropical cooling at the last glacial maximum lgm is widely accepted although the estimates of that cooling range between 1 c and 5 c in answering the basic question what is meant by cooling we observe that interhemispheric ice mass asymmetry may have caused cooling to be manifested differently according to location a terrestrial cooling of ca 5 c as well as radiative cooling and event based cooling combined to induce vegetation change probably both absolute temperature and mean monthly minima were reduced by polar air incursions in the northern neotropics how ever in the southern neotropics mean monthly minima were reduced by more frequent incursions of patagonian air masses but absolute minima may have been largely unchanged copyright 2004 john wiley sons ltd

tropical rain forest and climate dynamics of the atlantic lowland southern brazil during the late quaternary palynological analysis of a core from the atlantic rain forest region in brazil provides unprecedented insight into late quaternary vegetational and climate dynamics within this southern tropical lowland the 576 cm long sediment core is from a former beach ridge valley located 3 km inland from the atlantic ocean radio carbon dates suggest that sediment deposition began prior to 35 000 14c yr b p between ca 37 500 and ca 27 500 14c yr b p and during the last glacial maximum lgm ca 27 500 to ca 14 500 14c yr b p the coastal rain forest was replaced by grassland and patches of cold adapted forest tropical trees such as alchornea moraceae urticaceae and arecaceae were almost completely absent during the lgm furthermore their distributions were shifted at least 750 km further north suggesting a cooling between 3 c and 7 c and a strengthening of antarctic cold fronts during full glacial times a depauperate tropical rain forest developed as part of a successional sequence after ca 12 300 14c yr b p there is no evidence that araucaria trees occurred in the atlantic lowland during glacial times the rain forest was disturbed by marine incursions during the early holocene period until ca 6100 14c yr b p as indicated by the presence of microforaminifera a closed atlantic rain forest then developed at the study site

the paradox of drowned reefs and carbonate platforms shallow water carbonate platforms and reefs are drowned when tectonic subsidence or rising sea level outpaces carbonate accumulation and benthonic carbonate production ceases drowned platforms are common in the geologic record but they present a paradox if one considers rates of processes involved during the early holocene when sea level rose at rates of 6 000 to 10 000 m yr mm 1 000 yr most reefs and platforms were outpaced by the rising sea during the late holocene with sea level rising 500 to 3 000 m yr in the atlantic caribbean area reefs and platforms started to recover built to sea level and prograded seaward 1 000 m yr is thus a conservative estimate of the average growth potential of modern reefs and platforms independently accumulation rates of prograding platforms in the geologic record suggest growth potential in excess of several hundred microns per year the growth potential of 1 000 m yr exceeds any relative rise of sea level caused by long term processes in the geologic record newly formed ocean crust subsides at a maximum of 250 m yr basin subsidence averages 10 to 100 m yr and sea level rises due to increased sea floor spreading amount to less than 10 m yr rapid pulses of relative rise of sea level or reduction of benthic growth by deterioration of the environment remain the only plausible explanations of drowning the geologic record shows examples of both of these processes global mass extinctions of reefs and platforms occurred in the middle cretaceous eustatic rise due to submarine volcanism or desiccation of a small ocean basin and the late devonian global crisis of ocean environment extraterrestrial cause drowning controlled by regional tectonics prevailed in the jurassic and early cretaceous of the tethyan realm and the drowning of mesozoic platforms in the western north atlantic seems to have been dictated by plate tectonic drift to higher latitudes

post rift vertical movements and horizontal deformations in the eastern margin of the central atlantic middle jurassic to early cretaceous evolution of morocco wide regions of morocco from the meseta to the high atlas have experienced km scale upward vertical movements during middle jurassic to early cretaceous times following the appearance of oceanic crust in the central atlantic the area experiencing exhumation was flanked to the w by a domain of continuous subsidence part of which is named the essaouira agadir basin comparison with vertical movement curves predicted by lithospheric thinning models shows that only 50 60 of the subsidence documented in the essaouira basin can be explained by post rift thermal relaxation and that 30 40 of the observed exhumation can be explained by processes in directly related to the evolution of the central atlantic rifted margin syn sedimentary structures in middle jurassic to lower cretaceous formations of the eassouira agadir basin are common and range from m scale folds and thrusts to km scale sedimentary wedges these structures systematically document coeval shortening generally oriented at high angle to the present margin as a working hypothesis it is suggested that regional shortening can explain the structural observations and the enigmatic vertical movements

detrital transport of metals by glaciers an example from the pinchi mine central british columbia abundant cinnabar hgs mineralization is associated with the pinchi fault in central british columbia two formerly producing mercury mines have been developed on this fault pinchi and bralorne takla the mercury content of till a sediment type directly deposited by glaciers in the area of this fault is primarily controlled by the occurrence of cinnabar mineralization in bedrock and the direction of ice flow cinnabar bearing bedrock was eroded by glaciers transported in the direction of ice flow and deposited down ice from its source an example of such a dispersal train is documented for the pinchi mine area where mercury ore was transported over a distance of 12 km as measured in the clay sized fraction 3 3 of this same sediment antimony chromium and nickel dispersal trains were also detected in the region these data indicate that natural glacial processes can result in the mobilization of metals in the surficial environment a factor which has to be considered at mine sites in glaciated terrain where mine reclamation and remediation measures are now required

evidence of a late glacial warming event and early holocene cooling in the southern brazilian coastal highlands a high resolution pollen record of the atlantic rain forest arf biome from the coastal serra do tabuleiro mountains of southern brazil documents an 11 960 yr history of vegetation and climate change a marked expansion of weinmannia into the grassland vegetation marks the latter part of the younger dryas reflecting warm and relatively wet conditions between 11 490 and 9110 cal yr bp grasslands became dominant again indicating a long cold and dry phase probably in response to the stronger influence of cold south atlantic seawater and to antarctic cold fronts between 9110 and 2640 cal yr bp four distinct phases with strong or moderate expansions of different arf biome taxa were recorded reflecting warmer and relatively dry conditions with changes in rainfall and length of the annual dry season after 2640 cal yr bp the modern arf biome became established with high amounts of ferns reflecting somewhat cooler and wetter conditions with a reduced annual dry season in particular after 1000 cal yr bp tree ferns increased reflecting wetter conditions with no dry season

mesozoic evolution of nw africa implications for the central atlantic ocean dynamics the central atlantic ocean opened during the early jurassic and represents the oldest portion of the atlantic ocean although the american margin has been well studied the onshore evolution of its african counterpart is poorly understood we investigated the evolution of a c 1300 km transect across the reguibat shield morocco mauritania algeria in the northern west african craton using low temperature thermochronology fourteen samples were dated using apatite fission track analysis nine of these samples were also dated using u th sm he analysis fission track ages range from 118 10 to 497 61 ma with mean track lengths between 11 2 0 4 and 12 5 0 2 m u th sm he single grain ages range from 32 3 to 396 32 ma through forward and inverse thermal modelling we demonstrate that the craton underwent kilometre scale exhumation between the early middle jurassic and the late cretaceous based on our new results published data on nw africa and data from the conjugate eastern north american passive margin we show that this post rift early middle jurassic to early cretaceous exhumation affected both margins to a similar areal extent and simultaneously transient mantle dynamic support is suggested to account for the major erosional phase recorded on both margins supplementary material the method for thermal modelling the thermal modelling for all samples and the relationship between apatite chemistry and u th he ages are available at https doi org 10 6084 m9 figshare c 3770918

early cretaceous events in the evolution of the eastern and western north atlantic continental margins at many north atlantic continental margins the early neocomian is characterized by a major stratigraphic turning point from late jurassic berriasian carbonate bank pelagic carbonate deposition to valanginian barremian hemipelagic sedimentation with thick wealden type deltaic to deep sea fan sequences

millennial scale precipitation changes in southern brazil over the past 90 000 years 1 a u th dated 90 000 year long speleothem oxygen isotope record from southern brazil anti correlates remarkably with the cave calcite records from eastern china but positively correlates with the speleothem record from northeastern brazil suggesting an interhemispheric anti phasing of rainfall on both millennial and orbital timescales likely related to displacement in the mean position of the intertropical convergence zone and associated asymmetry in hadley circulation the phase relationships among these records are consistent with the hypothesis that abrupt climate events during the last glacial period are triggered by oceanic circulation changes in the high latitudes and enhanced by tropical feedbacks

salt tectonics along the atlantic margin of morocco abstract the moroccan salt basin appears to be very unique in the sense that it is not sedimentary loading but tectonic inversion which appears to drive the latest stages of salt related deformation in the central part of the basin the gravity potential to maintain salt tectonics is provided by the differential uplift of the atlas mountains located adjacent and striking almost perpendicular to the margin along the offshore part of the moroccan salt basin there are many play types most of them related to the triassic syn rift salt toe thrust anticlines at the basinwards edge of the salt basin form very large structures traps associated with salt tongues and diapirs define a more classical salt flank play numerous salt tongues sheets and canopy complexes provide for a gulf of mexico style subsalt play despite the numerous untested play types there have been only four deep water exploration wells drilled in the entire moroccan salt basin none of them having subsalt penetrations

southern oscillation signal in south american palaeoclimatic data of the last 7000 years abstract during strong el nino events rainfall anomalies and changes in wind patterns are observed in different regions of south america along the central brazilian coast during the 1983 el nino year the frontal systems were blocked to the south provoking a reversal of the longshore sand transport long duration reversals of longshore transport were also recorded in holocene beach ridge terraces from the rio doce coastal plain this led to the formulation of a model relating these reversals of longshore transport to el nino like conditions el nino like conditions are past average climate situations that generate the same perturbations as the strong el nino events observed during the last decade they are likely to correspond to the long duration low phase of the southern oscillation to confirm this hypothesis we compared the holocene beach ridge record with other palaeoenvironmental records from regions where strong el nino events would have a substancial signal as well 1 water level fluctuations of lake titicaca 2 a pollen and sediment record in an eastern amazonian lake 3 changes of the rio xingu discharge in eastern amazonia and 4 variations of sand supply at the rio piura and rio chira outlets in the sechura desert the occurrences of el nino like conditions were numerous before 3900 3600 yr b p absent between 39003600 and 2800 2500 yr b p and infrequent after 2800 2500 yr b p

a stalagmite record of changes in atmospheric circulation and soil processes in the brazilian subtropics during the late pleistocene we present a high resolution 116 000 year carbon stable isotope record from a stalagmite from southern brazil which has been precisely dated using the u series method evaluation of carbon and oxygen isotope ratios together with the speleothem growth history suggest that the carbon isotopic composition of the speleothem is primarily controlled by biogenic co2 supply from the soil which is in turn affected by temperature and secondarily rainfall amount thus the speleothem provides evidence of paleoenvironmental change in southern brazil during the last glacial period predominantly high d 13 c values and low stalagmite growth rates reflect persistent cool conditions during most of the glacial period in subtropical brazil this cooling is probably related to an intensified extratropical circulation with more frequent and intense cold surges reaching a maximum at approximately 19 ky b p this cooling tendency is interrupted during periods of high obliquity values within the full glacial period at 93 85 and 47 40 ky b p and after 19 ky b p when a dramatic decrease in d 13 c marks the deglaciation time in the continent unlike d 18 o the d 13 c record does not exhibit a strong response to precessional forcing instead it shows a strong 40 ky obliquity signal here we propose that local temperature and thus the biological processes in the soil are primarily steered by the gradients of temperature between low and mid high latitudes which influence the meridional heat transport these gradient changes in turn are paced by obliquity r 2006 published by elsevier ltd

south and southeast brazilian grasslands during late quaternary times a synthesis fourteen pollen records from the south s and the southeast se brazilian regions have been synthesised late glacial records from s brazilian highlands document the predominance of grassland campos where today araucaria forests occur records from se brazil show that during pre and full glacial times modern tropical semideciduous forest and cerrado savanna to dry forest were mostly replaced by grassland and some subtropical gallery forest modern montane araucaria forests and cloud forests in se brazil were mostly replaced by grassland during pre and full glacial times there is evidence that the modern tropical atlantic rainforest in s brazil was significantly reduced and replaced by cold adapted forest taxa or grassland during glacial especially during full glacial times the synthesis indicates that grasslands dominated the s and se brazilian landscape during the late pleistocene where today different forest ecosystems exist grassland extended over 750 km from s to se brazil from latitudes of about 28 27 s to at least 20 s these results indicate that climates in the region were markedly drier and 5 7 c cooler during glacial times antarctic cold fronts must have been much stronger and more frequent than today studies from s brazil show that huge areas of late pleistocene campos vegetation were still found on the s brazilian highlands during early and mid holocene times reflecting dry climatic conditions with an annual dry period of probably 3 months modern wet climatic conditions with no or only short dry periods were not established until the late holocene period when araucaria forests replaced large areas of grassland vegetation after about 3000 14c yr b p and especially after 1500 1000 14c yr b p

plate tectonic reconstructions and paleogeographic maps of the central and north atlantic oceans1 2 1this article is one of a series of papers published in this cjes special issue on the theme of mesozoic cenozoic geology of the scotian basin 2earth sciences sector contribution 20120172 we have established a new plate kinematic model of the central and north atlantic oceans between north america africa meseta iberia flemish cap and galicia bank from late triassic to late cretaceous to better understand the nature and timing of rifting of nova scotia and morocco conjugate continental margins since late triassic the maps of salt distributions at the sinemurian pliensbachian limit 190 ma after salt deposition and in middle bajocian 170 ma show that an area of the nova scotia margin is devoid of allochthonous salt and that an area of similar size located oceanward of the west african coast magnetic anomaly shows salt deposits suggesting that a portion of the nova scotia margin with its overlying salt deposits could have been transferred onto the moroccan side right after the formation of the conjugate east coast magnetic anomaly and west african coast magnetic anomaly seven paleogeographic maps from late triassic to late cretaceous are presented with structural elements and ma

mesozoic carbonate platforms and banks of the eastern north american margin abstract the jurassic lower cretaceous carbonate platforms and banks form a discontinuous belt extending over distance of 6000 km from the grand banks up to the bahamas six types of carbonate buildups are recognized and document the variability of depositional paleo oceanographic and tectonic processes on the eastern north american margin the composition of the carbonates closely resembles the recent deposits of the western great bahama bank since oolitic shoals were present near to the shelf edge and skeletal peloid wackestones and biomicrites were deposited in the inner part of the platform coralstromatoporoid and sponge bioherms were only rare constituents of the carbonate banks the thickness of carbonate buildups progressively increases southward along the margin attaining a thickness of more than 5 km on the bahamas the carbonate platforms also become younger southwards which is thought to reflect the northward movement of the north american plate of less than 1 5 cm yr the carbonate platforms were seeded over the continental basement following the taphrogenic period of plate tectonics building of carbonate ramps which characterized the early jurassic has began during the transitional period between continental rifting and early drift the second stage in construction of the carbonate platforms and offshore banks proceeded mainly after separation of the continental plates

geological survey of canada s contributions to understanding the composition of glacial sediments drift compositional studies were initiated at the geological survey of canada gsc in the mid 1960 s in projects that drew heavily on the technology and approaches developed in fennoscandia over the previous century as this research progressed and expanded in the 1970 s its fennoscandian character diminished and like the geochemical exploration research program that it closely paralleled drift prospecting began to acquire a distinctly canadian character imposed by the geographical and logistical constraints of climate and asymmetric population distribution gsc research has increasingly focused on understanding and explaining the geochemical expression of the mineralogical composition of glacial sediments that are unaltered or only slightly altered by postdepositional weathering because glacial sediments are generated largely by crushing and abrasion their various mineral and lithological components attain characteristic size modes based on physical properties such as cleavage and hardness this s

postrift history of the eastern central atlantic passive margin insights from the saharan region of south morocco the passive margin of south morocco is a low elevated passive margin it constitutes one of the oldest margins of the atlantic ocean with an early jurassic breakup and little geological data are available concerning its postrift reactivation so far we investigated the postrift thermal history of the onshore part of the margin with low temperature thermochronology on apatite crystals fission track and u th sm he ages we obtained are significantly younger than the breakup 190 ma fission track ages range from 107 8 to 175 16 ma with mean track lengths from 10 7 0 3 to 12 5 0 2 m u th sm he ages range from 14 1 to 185 15 ma using inverse modeling of low temperature thermochronological data we demonstrate that the south moroccan continental margin underwent a complex postrift history with at least two burial and exhumation phases the first exhumation event occurred during late jurassic early cretaceous and we attribute this to mantle dynamics rather than to intrinsic rifting related processes such as flexural rebound the second event from late cretaceous to early paleogene might record the onset of africa europe convergence we show a remarkably common behavior of the whole moroccan passive margin during its early postrift evolution the present day differences result from a segmentation of the margin domains due to the africa europe convergence finally we propose that varying retained strengths during rifting and also the specific crustal lithospheric geometry of stretching explain the difference between the topographical expressions on the continental african margin compared to its american counterpart

abrupt changes in high latitude nutrient supply to the atlantic during the last glacial cycle the supply of nutrients to the low latitude thermocline is largely controlled by intermediate depth waters formed at the surface in the high southern latitudes silicic acid is an essential macronutrient for diatoms which are responsible for a significant portion of marine carbon export production changes in ocean circulation such as those observed during the last deglaciation would influence the nutrient composition of the thermocline and therefore the relative abundance of diatoms in the low latitudes here we present the first record of the silicic acid content of the atlantic over the last glacial cycle our results show that at intermediate depths of the south atlantic the silicic acid concentration was the same at the lgm as it is today overprinted by high silicic acid pulses that coincided with abrupt changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation during heinrich stadials and the younger dryas we suggest these pulses were caused by changes in intermediate water formation resulting from shifts in the subpolar hydrological cycle with fundamental implications for the nutrient supply to the atlantic

formal subdivision of the holocene series epoch a discussion paper by a working group of intimate integration of ice core marine and terrestrial records and the subcommission on quaternary stratigraphy international commission on stratigraphy this discussion paper by a working group of intimate integration of ice core marine and terrestrial records and the subcommision on quaternary stratigraphy sqs of the international commission on stratigraphy ics considers the prospects for a formal subdivision of the holocene series epoch although previous attempts to subdivide the holocene have proved inconclusive recent developments in quaternary stratigraphy notably the definition of the pleistocene holocene boundary and the emergence of formal subdivisions of the pleistocene series epoch mean that it may be timely to revisit this matter the quaternary literature reveals a widespread but variable informal usage of a tripartite division of the holocene early middle or mid and late and we argue that this de facto subdivision should now be formalized to ensure consistency in stratigraphic terminology we propose an early middle holocene boundary at 8200 a bp and a middle late holocene boundary at 4200 a bp each of which is linked to a global stratotype section and point gssp should the proposal find a broad measure of support from the quaternary community a submission will be made to the international union of geological sciences iugs via the sqs and the ics for formal ratification of this subdivision of the holocene series epoch copyright 2012 john wiley sons ltd

related changes in biodiversity insolation and climate in the atlantic rainforest since the last interglacial abstract the long term colonia record is located in the atlantic rainforest domain in brazil 23 52 s 46 42 20 w 900 m a s l the 780 cm long core co3 provides a coverage of a complete interglacial glacial cycle for the first time in a neotropical rainforest information on the behavior of tropical climates compared to global changes in temperatures indicates specific climate responses in terms of precipitation at these latitudes winter extratropical circulation was very active during the last interglacial and most of the glacial floristic composition of the rainforest changed several times in each phase of expansion twice during the interglacial and three times during glacial episodes araucaria was well developed in the area of sao paulo until the beginning of the first dry phase of the glacial at ca 50 000 yr b p changes in insolation controlled the expansion of the rainforest and the tropical hydrological cycle as evidenced by a strong precession signal however precession had no impact on regional climatic features the two interglacials mis 5e and holocene showed completely different patterns attesting to the continuous evolution of the forest the biodiversity index shannon wiener index remained high during both the interglacial and glacial attesting to the permanence of small patches of rainforest refugia during drier phases the lowest shannon wiener indexes were recorded between 23 000 and 12 000 yr b p and 40 000 and 30 000 yr b p and characterize two marked phases of stress for the rainforest

upper pleistocene to holocene peatland evolution in southern brazilian highlands as depicted by radar stratigraphy sedimentology and palynology paleoenvironmental interpretation of proxy data derived from peatlands is largely based upon an evolutionary model for ombrotrophic bogs in which peat accumulates in still environments reports on proxies obtained from minerotrophic fens where hydrologic inputs are variable are less common in this study a highland peatland in southern brazil is presented through ground penetrating radar gpr and sedimentological palynological and geochronologic data the radar stratigraphic interpretation suggests a relatively complex history of erosion and deposition at the site since the beginning of marine isotope stage 3 mis 3 interstadial period in spite of this radar stratigraphic and palynologic interpretations converge electromagnetic reflections tend to group in clusters that show lateral coherence and correlate with different sediment types while pollen grains abound and are well preserved as a result the study of minerotrophic fens provides a source of proxies suggesting that ombrotrophic bogs are not the only reliable source of data in wetlands for palynological analysis

seismic geomorphology of offshore morocco s east margin safi haute mer area the lower continental slope of morocco s west coast consists of triassic age salt manifested in the form of diapirs tongues sheets canopies and toe thrusts active salt diapirism and regional tectonics greatly influence the morphology of the modern sea floor forming a severely rugose expression with ongoing minibasin development and episodic submarine failure detailed mapping of a 1064 km2 411 mi2 seismic survey acquired in the safi haute mer area revealed that jurassic to holocene salt mobilization continually affected distribution of sediment causing a range of depositional flow styles from slumps to sheet slides and mass transport complexes mtcs large sediment waves 20 km 12 mi long 1 5 km 0 9 mi wavelength were also documented at the end of the aptian an east west trending structural anticline downdip of the salt activated during initiation of the atlas uplift in the latest cretaceous to earliest tertiary and shaped much of the lower slope into the tertiary with a persistent canyon system and slope channels the largest of the debris flows is a cretaceous age mtc a 500 m 1640 ft thick flow that spans an area of up to 20 000 km2 7722 mi2 composing the mtc are 1 chaotic mounded seismic facies 2 internal syndepositional thrusts and 3 transported megablocks 3 3 km2 1 3 mi2 with preserved internal stratigraphy the mtc originated from an upslope collapse of a narrow shelf during the earliest phases of the alpine orogeny

evidence of rainfall variations in southern brazil from trace element ratios mg ca and sr ca in a late pleistocene stalagmite trace element ratios in the bt2 stalagmite from botuveracave southern brazil are explored as a proxy for changes in the local rainfall recharge during the last 116 ky bp mg ca and sr ca ratios measured with an electron microprobe are signif icantly positively correlated with one another throughout the entire record and vary in a way that is very consistent with variations of d 18 o in the same speleothem during the last glacial period we suggest that prior calcite precipitation in the vadose zone of the cave system is the main factor affecting the incorporation of mg and sr into calcite of the stalagmite this interpretation is supported by trace element correlation patterns and by results from a hydrochemistry study performed in a cave located in the same region and in a similar environmental setting therefore we conclude that higher lower mg ca and sr ca values are associated with lower higher levels of recharge into the karstic aquifer as such conditions lead to an increase decrease in the volume of calcite precipitated in the unsaturated zone above the cave during dry wet climate periods trace element variations point to generally dryer wetter conditions during lower high phases of summer insolation in the southern hemisphere these periods coincide with decreased increased activity of the south american summer monsoon as revealed by d 18 o stalagmite records in addition trace element variations show that rather wet conditions persisted through out most of the last glacial period from approximately 70 to 17 ky bp we suggest that during this period the glacial boundary conditions especially ice volume buildup in the northern hemisphere played an important role for monsoon rainfall inten sification in the region 2007 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

interaction of the south american monsoon system and the southern westerly wind belt during the last 14 kyr abstract surface currents and sediment distribution of the se south american upper continental margin are under the influence of the south american monsoon system sams and the southern westerly wind belt swwb both climatic systems determine the meridional position of the subtropical shelf front stsf and probably also of the brazil malvinas confluence bmc we reconstruct the changing impact of the sams and the swwb on sediment composition at the upper rio grande cone off southern brazil during the last 14 cal kyr bp combining sedimentological geochemical micropaleontological and rock magnetic proxies of marine sediment core geob 6211 2 sharp reciprocal changes in ferri and paramagnetic mineral content and prominent grain size shifts give strong clues to systematic source changes and transport modes of these mostly terrigenous sediments our interpretations support the assumption that the sams over se south america was weaker than today during most of the late glacial and entire early holocene while the swwb was contracted to more southern latitudes resembling modern austral summer like conditions in consequence the stsf and the bmc were driven to more southern positions than today s favoring the deposition of fe rich but weakly magnetic la plata river silts at the rio grande cone during the mid holocene the northern boundary of the swwb migrated northward while the stsf reached its northernmost position of the last 14 cal kyr bp and the bmc most likely arrived at its modern position this shift enabled the transport of antarctic diatoms and more strongly magnetic argentinean shelf sands to the rio grande cone while sediment contributions from the la plata river became less important during the late holocene the modern el nino southern oscillation set in and the sams and the austral tradewinds intensified causing a southward shift of the stsf to its modern position this reinforced a significant deposition of la plata river silts at the rio grande cone these higher magnetic silts with intermediate fe contents mirror the modern more humid terrestrial climatic conditions over se south america