Faecal pellet production of copepoda collected in water depth up to 20 meters in the eastern Mediterranean Sea in March and April 2008 during SES_GR1

The SES_GR1-Mesozooplankton faecal pellet production rates dataset is based on samples taken during April 2008 in the North-Eastern Aegean Sea. Mesozooplankton is collected by vertical tows within the Black sea water body mass layer in the NE Aegean, using a WP-2 200 µm net equipped with a large non-filtering cod-end (10 l). Macrozooplankton organisms are removed using a 2000 µm net. A few unsorted animals (approximately 100) are placed inside several glass beaker of 250 ml filled with GF/F or 0.2 µm Nucleopore filtered seawater and with a 100 µm net placed 1 cm above the beaker bottom. Beakers are then placed in an incubator at natural light and maintaining the in situ temperature. After 1 hour pellets are separated from animals and placed in separated flasks and preserved with formalin. Pellets are counted and measured using an inverted microscope. Animals are scanned and counted using an image analysis system. Carbon- Specific faecal pellet production is calculated from a) faecal pellet production, b) individual carbon: Animals are scanned and their body area is measured using an image analysis system. Body volume is then calculated as an ellipsoid using the major and minor axis of an ellipse of same area as the body. Individual carbon is calculated from a carbon- total body volume of organisms (relationship obtained for the Mediterranean Sea by Alcaraz et al. (2003) divided by the total number of individuals scanned and c) faecal pellet carbon: Faecal pellet length and width is measured using an inverted microscope. Faecal pellet volume is calculated from length and width assuming cylindrical shape. Conversion of faecal pellet volume to carbon is done using values obtained in the Mediterranean from: a) faecal pellet density 1,29 g cm**3 (or pg µm**3) from Komar et al. (1981); b) faecal pellet DW/WW=0,23 from Elder and Fowler (1977) and c) faecal pellet C%DW=25,5 Marty et al. (1994).

Depth tie points and ages of IODP Site 306-U1314

Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Site U1314 of the North Atlantic is a critical sedimentary archive record of subpolar deep water from the southern Gardar Drift for which we derived an age model of orbital resolution for the last 1.8 Ma. This chronology combined with high-resolution (cm scale) X-ray fluorescence core scanning measurements of major elements allows tracking changes in terrigenous provenance during the last 1.1 Ma. Low Potassium to Titanium (K/Ti) ratios reflect enhanced transport of basalt-derived titanomagnetites during warm climate intervals, while high K/Ti ratios indicate a dominance of acidic sediment sources typical for glacial and stadial events. Changes in K/Ti and magnetic concentration at Site 1314 are coeval with fluctuations in smectite content and grain size data from nearby piston cores, suggesting that the provenance changes are mainly controlled by variable flow of the Iceland-Scotland Overflow Water, an important branch of North Atlantic Deep Water. Furthermore, K/Ti variations on orbital time scales show a striking similarity to the deep sea d13C record from ODP Site 607. Pervasive features of the K/Ti time series during and after the Mid-Pleistocene Transition are suborbital changes similar to Dansgaard/Oeschger and Bond oscillations that appear to be strongly amplified during ice growth phases when global benthic d18O was within the range of ~4.1-4.6 per mil. The strong increase in variability of sediment provenance and subsequently deep hydrography at benthic d18O values below ~4.1 suggests that the extent of glaciations and, therefore, sea level corresponding to this value constitutes an important physical threshold that was persistent at least for the last 1.1 Ma.