(Table 2) Age determination of brock-red sandy mud beds and detrital carbonate beds in the Scotian margin

Piston cores from the continental margin off Nova Scotia show up to four discrete intervals of "brick-red sandy mud", which are up to 20 cm thick. The ages of these intervals are bracketed by several radiocarbon dates, and three fall in the range 12.5-14.1 ka (radiocarbon years with -0.4 kyr reservoir correction). The youngest dates from ~10.4 ka, placing it within the Younger Dryas. The distribution of the beds and their petrographic character indicate a source in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The grain size of these beds suggests that they comprise a coarse component transported by ice rafting that diminishes distally and a fine component that represents suspension fallout from a surface plume and resulting nepheloid layers. Graded brick-red beds in some cores were probably redeposited from turbidity currents. The lowermost bed on the Laurentian Fan and East Scotian Rise is immediately overlain by a carbonate-rich interval that can be identified all around the margin of the Grand Banks. This interval is correlated with detrital carbonate bed DC-1 in the Labrador Sea and Heinrich event H1 in the North Atlantic. The sequential occurrence of the two beds suggests that they may be a response to the same trigger, probably sea level rise, but that the Gulf of Saint Lawrence source was more easily destabilized.

Sedimentological, physical, bulk geochemical, elemental and rock magnetic properties of the Middle to Late Pleistocene Rodderberg (Eifel/Germany)

The sediment record from Rodderberg potentially provides a climate and environmental record spanning at least the last ca 130 ka. Results from a low resolution pilot study reveal characteristic fluctuations that can be related to global climate variability as reflected in marine isotope stages and document the potential of this site for continuous and high-resolution investigations of the Middle to Late Pleistocene. Here we document the tentative lithology drilled, and show how the elemental composition can be interpreted with regard to lake level fluctuations, related redox conditions, but also to grain-size distribution and changes in lacustrine productivity. Finally, based on major lithological changes, a preliminary depth/age model is suggested that allows reassessing published luminescence ages from the same site.

Appendix A. Whole-rock major, trace and rare earth element analyses of the Ulubey volcanics, Appendix B. Analytical standards and detection limits for analyses

Collisional and post-collisional volcanic rocks in the Ulubey (Ordu) area at the western edge of the Eastern Pontide Tertiary Volcanic Province (EPTVP) in NE Turkey are divided into four suites; Middle Eocene (49.4-44.6 Ma) aged Andesite-Trachyandesite (AT), Trachyandesite-Trachydacite-Rhyolite (TTR), Trachydacite-Dacite (TD) suites, and Middle Miocene (15.1 Ma) aged Trachybasalt (TB) suite. Local stratigraphy in the Ulubey area starts with shallow marine environment sediments of the Paleocene-Eocene time and then continues extensively with sub-aerial andesitic to rhyolitic and rare basaltic volcanism during Eocene and Miocene time, respectively. Petrographically, the volcanic rocks are composed primarily of andesites/trachyandesites, with minor trachydacites/rhyolites, basalts/trachybasalts and pyroclastics, and show porphyric, hyalo-microlitic porphyric and rarely glomeroporphyric, intersertal, intergranular, fluidal and sieve textures. The Ulubey (Ordu) volcanic rocks indicate magma evolution from tholeiitic-alkaline to calc-alkaline with medium-K contents. Primitive mantle normalized trace element and chondrite normalized rare earth element (REE) patterns show that the volcanic rocks have moderate light rare earth element (LREE)/heavy rare earth element (HREE) ratios relative to E-Type MORB and depletion in Nb, Ta and Ti. High Th/Yb ratios indicate parental magma(s) derived from an enriched source formed by mixing of slab and asthenospheric melts previously modified by fluids and sediments from a subduction zone. All of the volcanic rocks share similar incompatible element ratios (e.g., La/Sm, Zr/Nb, La/Nb) and chondrite-normalized REE patterns, indicating that the basic to acidic rocks originated from the same source. The volcanic rocks were produced by the slab dehydration-induced melting of an existing metasomatized mantle source, and the fluids from the slab dehydration introduced significant large ion lithophile element (LILE) and LREE to the source, masking its inherent HFSE-enriched characteristics. The initial 87Sr/86Sr (0.7044-0.7050) and eNd (-0.3 to +3.4) ratios of the volcanics suggest that they originated from an enriched lithospheric mantle source with low Sm/Nd ratios. Integration of the geochemical, petrological and isotopical with regional and local geological data suggest that the Tertiary volcanic rocks from the Ulubey (Ordu) area were derived from an enriched mantle, which had been previously metasomatized by fluids derived from subducted slab during Eocene to Miocene in collisional and post-collisional extension-related geodynamic setting following Late Mesozoic continental collision between the Eurasian plate and the Tauride-Anatolide platform.