Neogene diatoms from the western Antarctic Peninsula

During Ocean Drilling Program Leg 178 we cored nine sites on the continental rise (Sites 1095, 1096, and 1101), continental shelf (Sites 1097, 1100, 1102, and 1103), and in an inner shelf basin, Palmer Deep (Sites 1098 and 1099), along the Pacific margin of the Antarctic Peninsula. Fossil diatoms are a key group that provides age constraint for these shelf site sediments to allow reconstruction of Antarctic Peninsula glacial history. This paper provides the systematic paleontology of diatoms applied in biostratigraphic and paleoceanographic studies and includes a total of 33 plates. Taxonomic confusion in previous reports, including biostratigraphically useful species such as Thalassiosira inura and Thalassiosira complicata, is discussed. These systematics and taxonomic discussions help to provide a reference for Neogene diatoms in the Southern Ocean.

Profiles of diatoms, pollen, XRD, XRF and organic composition of two sediment cores (PG2022 and PG2023) from Lake Kyutyunda in Yakutia, NE Siberia, Russia

Although the climate development over the Holocene in the Northern Hemisphere is well known, palaeolimnological climate reconstructions reveal spatiotemporal variability in northern Eurasia. Here we present a multi-proxy study from north-eastern Siberia combining sediment geochemistry, and diatom and pollen data from lake-sediment cores covering the last 38,000 cal. years. Our results show major changes in pyrite content and fragilarioid diatom species distributions, indicating prolonged seasonal lake-ice cover between ~13,500 and ~8,900 cal. years BP and possibly during the 8,200 cal. years BP cold event. A pollen-based climate reconstruction generated a mean July temperature of 17.8°C during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM) between ~8,900 and ~4,500 cal. years BP. Naviculoid diatoms appear in the late Holocene indicating a shortening of the seasonal ice cover that continues today. Our results reveal a strong correlation between the applied terrestrial and aquatic indicators and natural seasonal climate dynamics in the Holocene. Planktonic diatoms show a strong response to changes in the lake ecosystem due to recent climate warming in the Anthropocene. We assess other palaeolimnological studies to infer the spatiotemporal pattern of the HTM and affirm that the timing of its onset, a difference of up to 3,000 years from north to south, can be well explained by climatic teleconnections. The westerlies brought cold air to this part of Siberia until the Laurentide ice-sheet vanished 7,000 years ago. The apparent delayed ending of the HTM in the central Siberian record can be ascribed to the exceedance of ecological thresholds trailing behind increases in winter temperatures and decreases in contrast in insolation between seasons during the mid to late Holocene as well as lacking differentiation between summer and winter trends in paleolimnological reconstructions.