Sedimentology of cores from the continental rise west of the Antarctic Peninsula

The continental rise west of the Antarctic Peninsula includes a number of large sediment mounds interpreted as contourite drifts. Cores from six sediment drifts spanning some 650 km of the margin and 48 of latitude have been dated using chemical and isotopic tracers of palaeoproductivity and diatom biostratigraphy. Interglacial sedimentation rates range from 1.1 to 4.3 cm/ka. Glacial sedimentation rates range from 1.8 to 13.5 cm/ka, and decrease from proximal to distal sites on each drift. Late Quaternary sedimentation was cyclic, with brown, biogenic, burrowed mud containing ice-rafted debris (IRD) in interglacials and grey, barren, laminated mud in glacials. Foraminiferal intervals occur in interglacial stages 5 and 7 but not in the Holocene. Processes of terrigenous sediment supply during glacial stages differed; meltwater plumes were more important in stages 2-4, turbidity currents and ice-rafting in stage 6. The terrigenous component shows compositional changes along the margin, more marked in glacials. The major oxides Al2O3 and K2O are higher in the southwest, and CaO and TiO2 higher in the northeast. There is more smectite among the clay minerals in the northeast. Magnetic susceptibility varies along and between drifts. These changes reflect source variations along the margin. Interglacial sediments show less clear trends, and their IRD was derived from a wider area. Downslope processes were dominant in glacials, but alongslope processes may have attained equal importance in interglacials. The area contrasts with the East Antarctic continental slope in the SE Weddell Sea, where ice-rafting is the dominant process and where interglacial sedimentation rates are much higher than glacial. The differences in glacial setting and margin physiography can account for these contrasts.

Late Quaternary geochemical record of sediment core GeoB3375-1

Analyses of terrigenous sediments from the Chilean continental slope off the southern border of the Atacama desert (27.5°S), focusing on illite crystallinity and the Fe:Al ratio of the sediments, reveal a high-frequency variability of the position of the Southern Westerlies, which is very similar to the coeval short-term climatic events known from Greenland ice cores and from North Atlantic sediments. Besides showing dominantly precession-driven variability in precipitation over the Andes, these analyses also reveal rapid changes in weathering intensity along the Chilean Coastal Range during the last 80,000 years. These rapid changes occur at much shorter timescales than the 19-100 kyr orbital forcing of the Milankovitch cycles.

Geochemistry of ODP Site 145-882

Measurements of benthic foraminiferal cadmium:calcium (Cd/Ca) have indicated that the glacial-interglacial change in deep North Pacific phosphate (PO4) concentration was minimal, which has been taken by some workers as a sign that the biological pump did not store more carbon in the deep glacial ocean. Here we present sedimentary redox-sensitive trace metal records from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 882 (NW subarctic Pacific, water depth 3244 m) to make inferences about changes in deep North Pacific oxygenation - and thus respired carbon storage - over the past 150,000 yr. These observations are complemented with biogenic barium and opal measurements as indicators for past organic carbon export to separate the influences of deep-water oxygen concentration and sedimentary organic carbon respiration on the redox state of the sediment. Our results suggest that the deep subarctic Pacific water mass was depleted in oxygen during glacial maxima, though it was not anoxic. We reconcile our results with the existing benthic foraminiferal Cd/Ca by invoking a decrease in the fraction of the deep ocean nutrient inventory that was preformed, rather than remineralized. This change would have corresponded to an increase in the deep Pacific storage of respired carbon, which would have lowered atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) by sequestering CO2 away from the atmosphere and by increasing ocean alkalinity through a transient dissolution event in the deep sea. The magnitude of change in preformed nutrients suggested by the North Pacific data would have accounted for a majority of the observed decrease in glacial atmospheric pCO2.

Geochemistry of sediments cores in the Mediterranean Sea

We investigated five time-equivalent core sections (180-110 kyr BP) from the Balearic Sea (Menorca Rise), the easternmost Levantine Basin and southwest, south, and southeast of Crete to reconstruct spatial patterns of productivity during deposition of sapropels S5 and S6 in the Mediterranean Sea. Our indicators are Ba, total organic carbon and carbonate contents. We found no indications of Ba remobilization within the investigated core intervals, and used the accumulation rate of biogenic Ba to compute paleoproductivity. Maximum surface water productivity (up to 350 g C/m2/yr) was found during deposition of S5 (isotope stage 5e) but pronounced spatial variability is evident. Coeval sediment intervals in the Balearic Sea show very little productivity change, suggesting that chemical and biological environments in the eastern and western Mediterranean basins were decoupled in this interval. We interpret the spatial variability as the result of two different modes of nutrient delivery to the photic zone: riverderived nutrient input and shoaling of the pycnocline/nutricline to the photic zone. The productivity increase during the formation of S6 was moderate compared to S5 and had a less marked spatial variability within the study area of the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Given that S6 formed during a glacial interval, glacial boundary conditions such as high wind stress and/or cooler surface water temperatures apparently favored lateral and vertical mixing and prevented the development of the spatial gradients within the Eastern Mediterranean Sea (EMS) observed for S5. A non-sapropel sediment interval with elevated Ba content and depleted 18O/16O ratios in planktonic foraminifer calcite was detected between S6 and S5 that corresponds to the weak northern hemisphere insolation maximum at 150 kyr. At this time, productivity apparently increased up to five times over surrounding intervals, but abundant benthic fauna show that the deep water remained oxic. Following our interpretation, the interval denotes a failed sapropel, when a weaker monsoon did not force the EMS into permanent stratification. The comparison of interglacial and glacial sapropels illustrates the relevance of climatic boundary conditions in the northern catchment in determining the facies and spatial variability of sapropels within the EMS.

Geochemistry and accumulation rates of the early Paleogene in the Weddel Sea, Maud Rise and Kerguelen Plateau

Marine biological productivity has been invoked as a possible climate driver during the early Paleogene through its potential influence on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. However, the relationship of export productivity (the flux of organic carbon (C) from the surface ocean to the deep ocean) to organic C burial flux (the flux of organic C from the deep ocean that is buried in marine sediments) is not well understood. We examine the various components involved with atmosphere-to-ocean C transfer by reconstructing early Paleogene carbonate and silica production (using carbonate and silica mass accumulation rates (MARs)); export productivity (using biogenic barium (bio-Ba) MARs); organic C burial flux (using reactive phosphorus (P) MARs); redox conditions (using uranium and manganese contents); and the fraction of organic C buried relative to export productivity (using reactive P to bio-Ba ratios). Our investigations concentrate on Paleocene/Eocene sections of Sites 689/690 from Maud Rise and Site 738 from Kerguelen Plateau. In both regions, export productivity, organic C burial flux, and the fraction of organic C buried relative to export productivity decreased from the Paleocene/early Eocene to the middle Eocene. A shift is indicated from an early Paleogene two-gyre circulation in which nutrients were not efficiently recycled to the surface via upwelling in these regions, to a circulation more like the present day with efficient recycling of nutrients to the surface ocean. Export productivity was enhanced for Kerguelen Plateau relative to Maud Rise throughout the early Paleogene, possibly due to internal waves generated by the plateau regardless of gyre circulation.

Geochemistry of Eocene/Oligocene sediments of ODP Hole 154-925A

Paleoproductivity, nutrient burial, and carbon cycling were investigated across the Eocene/Oligocene (E/O) boundary (begin to end; 36.9-32.7 Ma at ~40 kyr resolution, timescale of Shackleton et al. (1999, doi:10.1098/rsta.1999.0407) at Ocean Drilling Program Site 925 on the Ceara Rise in the western equatorial Atlantic (3040 m present water depth; 748.26-850.70 mbsf). Downcore bulk sediment records of biogenic barium, total reactive phosphorus, biogenic silica, and calcium carbonate are interpreted to represent export production, net nutrient burial, biogenic opal production, and inorganic carbon burial, respectively. The global positive excursion in d13C subsequent to the E/O boundary is recorded at Site 925. Export production appears to have been externally forced by orbital parameters at eccentricity frequencies during the study interval, based on spectral analysis of the biogenic barium and reactive phosphorus records. Biogenic silica production or preservation increased after the Eocene/Oligocene boundary to a higher baseline, although overall productivity and nutrient burial did not increase, based on barium and reactive phosphorus records. Thus, although absolute production did not increase at this site, a shift in relative abundance of siliceous versus carbonate productivity may have resulted in a change in relative organic carbon burial. This may have contributed to the positive excursion in global oceanic d13C subsequent to the Eocene/Oligocene boundary, although the silica maximum persists after the carbon isotope excursion ends.

Radionuclides in sediment cores of the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean

We present time series of export productivity proxy data including 230Thex-normalized deposition rates (rain rates) of 10Be, dissolution-corrected biogenic Ba, and biogenic opal as well as authigenic U concentrations which are complemented by rain rates of total (detrital) Fe and sea ice indicating diatom abundances from five sediment cores across the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean covering the past 150,000 years. The results suggest that 10Be rain rates and authigenic U concentration cannot serve as quantitative paleoproductivity proxies because they have also been influenced by detrital particle fluxes in the case of 10Be and bulk sedimentation rates (sediment focussing) and deep water oxygenation in the case of U. The combined results of the remaining productivity proxies of this study (rain rates of biogenic opal and biogenic Ba in those sections without authigenic U) and other previously published proxy data from the Southern Ocean (231Pa/230Th and nitrogen isotopes) suggest that a combination of sea ice cover, shallow remineralization depth, and stratification of the glacial water column south of the present position of the Antarctic Polar Front and possibly Fe fertilization north of it have been the main controlling factors of export paleoproductivity in the Southern Ocean over the last 150,000 years. An overall glacial increase of export paleoproductivity is not supported by the data, implying that bioproductivity variations in the Southern Ocean are unlikely to have contributed to the major glacial atmospheric CO2 drawdown observed in ice cores.

Stable isotope records and biogenic barium fluxes of sediment core SO202-07-06

Reduced nitrate supply to the subarctic North Pacific (SNP) surface during the last ice age has been inferred from coupled changes in diatom-bound d15N (DB-d15N), bulk sedimentary d15N, and biogenic fluxes. However, the reliability of bulk sedimentary and DB-d15N has been questioned, and a previously reported d15N minimum during Heinrich Stadial 1 (HS1) has proven difficult to explain. In a core from the western SNP, we report the foraminifera-bound d15N (FB-d15N) in Neogloboquadrina pachyderma and Globigerina bulloides, comparing them with DB-d15N in the same core over the past 25 kyr. The d15N of all recorders is higher during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) than in the Holocene, indicating more complete nitrate consumption. N. pachyderma FB-d15N is similar to DB-d15N in the Holocene but 2.2 per mil higher during the LGM. This difference suggests a greater sensitivity of FB-d15N to changes in summertime nitrate drawdown and d15N rise, consistent with a lag of the foraminifera relative to diatoms in reaching their summertime production peak in this highly seasonal environment. Unlike DB-d15N, FB-d15N does not decrease from the LGM into HS1, which supports a previous suggestion that the HS1 DB-d15N minimum is due to contamination by sponge spicules. FB-d15N drops in the latter half of the Bølling/Allerød warm period and rises briefly in the Younger Dryas cold period, followed by a decline into the mid-Holocene. The FB-d15N records suggest that the coupling among cold climate, reduced nitrate supply, and more complete nitrate consumption that characterized the LGM also applied to the deglacial cold events.

Geochemistry and sedimentation rates of ODP Leg 199 sites and of surface sediments in the eastern Pacific ocean

We present the first high-resolution organic carbon mass accumulation rate (MAR) data set for the Eocene equatorial Pacific upwelling region, from Sites 1218 and 1219 of the Ocean Drilling Program. A maximum Corg MAR anomaly appears at 41 Ma and corresponds to a high carbonate accumulation event (CAE). Independent evidence suggests that this event (CAE-3) was a time of rapid cooling. Throughout the Eocene, organic carbon burial fluxes were an order of magnitude lower than fluxes recorded for the Holocene. In contrast, the expected organic carbon flux, calculated from the biogenic barium concentrations for these sites, is roughly equal to modern. A sedimentation anomaly appears at 41 Ma, when both the measured and the expected organic carbon MAR increases by a factor of two-three relative to the background Eocene fluxes. The rain of estimated Corg and barium from the euphotic zone to the sediments increased by factors of three and six, respectively. We suggest that the discrepancy between the expected and measured Corg in the sediments is a direct consequence of the increased metabolic rates of all organisms throughout the Eocene oceans and sediments. This hypothesis is supported by recent work in ecology and biochemical kinetics that recognizes the fundamental basis of ecology as following from the laws of thermodynamics. This dependence is now elucidated as the Universal Temperature Dependence (UTD) "law" of metabolism and can be applied to all organisms over their biologically relevant temperature range. The general pattern of organic carbon and barium deposition throughout the Eocene is consistent with the UTD theory. In particular, the anomaly at 41 Ma (CAE-3) is associated with rapid cooling, an event that triggered slower metabolic rates for all organisms, slower recycling of organic carbon in the water and sediment column, and, consequently, higher deposition of organic carbon in the sediments. This "metabolism-based" scenario is consistent with the sedimentation patterns we observe for both Sites 1218 and 1219.

Sedimentology, geochemistry and paleomagnetic of ODP Hole 151-913B

The Eocene and Oligocene epochs (55 to 23 million years ago) comprise a critical phase in Earth history. An array of geological records (Zachos et al., 2001, doi:10.1126/science.1059412; Lear et al., 2000, doi:10.1126/science.287.5451.269; Coxall et al., 2005, doi:10.1038/nature03135; Pekar et al., 2005; doi:10.1130/B25486.1; Strand et al., 2003, doi:10.1016/S0031-0182(03)00396-1) supported by climate modelling (DeConto and Pollard, 2003, doi:10.1038/nature01290) indicates a profound shift in global climate during this interval, from a state that was largely free of polar ice caps to one in which ice sheets on Antarctica approached their modern size. However, the early glaciation history of the Northern Hemisphere is a subject of controversy (Coxall et al., 2005, doi:10.1038/nature03135; Tripati et al., 2005, doi:10.1038/nature03874; Wolf-Welling et al., 1996, doi:10.2973/odp.proc.sr.151.139.1996; Moran et al., 2006, doi:10.1038/nature04800). Here we report stratigraphically extensive ice-rafted debris, including macroscopic dropstones, in late Eocene to early Oligocene sediments from the Norwegian-Greenland Sea that were deposited between about 38 and 30 million years ago. Our data indicate sediment rafting by glacial ice, rather than sea ice, and point to East Greenland as the likely source. Records of this type from one site alone cannot be used to determine the extent of ice involved. However, our data suggest the existence of (at least) isolated glaciers on Greenland about 20 million years earlier than previously documented (Winkler et al., 2002, doi:10.1007/s005310100199), at a time when temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were substantially higher.

Sedimentology of cores from the Bellingshausen Sea, Antarctic

On the continental rise west of the Antarctic Peninsula there are nine large mounds interpreted as sediment drifts, separated by turbidity current channels. Drift 7 is 150 km long, 70 km wide and up to 700 m high and is asymmetric, with steep sides on the south-east (towards the continent) and south-west, and gentle slopes to north-west and north-east. Cores on the gentle sides of the drift show a cyclicity between brown, bioturbated, diatom-bearing mud with foraminifera and radiolarians, and grey, laminated, barren mud. Biostratigraphic evidence is consistent with a Late Quaternary age. Detailed lithostratigraphy and magnetic susceptibility data allow precise correlation over distances of tens of kilometres. On the basis of chemostratigraphy, the brown sediment is interpreted as interglacial (isotope stages 1 and 5) and the grey as glacial (stages 2-4 and 6). Sedimentation rates are 3.0-5.5 cm/ka. Cores on the steep sides of the drift recovered a condensed section with thinner cycles and hiatuses. Fine grain size, very poor sorting and the absence of a mode in the silt size range indicate deposition from suspension with only weak current activity, There is little evidence for cyclic changes in bottom current strength. Supply of sediment to the benthic nepheloid layer was by entrainment ofmud from turbidity currents, and by settling ofpelagic material (biogenic grains, IRD, sediment suspended in meltwater plumes). Cyclic changes in sediment supply include more biogenic supply in interglacials with less sea ice cover, more terrigenous supply from turbidites in glacials with ice sheets grounded to the shelf edge, and changes in IRD content.

Geochemical analysis of surface sediments from the ocean floor and from sea ice in the northern Atlantic and Arctic Oceans

Barium in marine terrigenous surface sediments of the European Nordic Seas is analysed to evaluate its potential as palaeoproductivity proxy. Biogenic Ba is calculated from Ba and Al data using a conventional approach. For the determination of appropriate detrital Ba/Al ratios a compilation of Ba and Al analyses in rocks and soils of the catchments surrounding the Nordic Seas is presented. The resulting average detrital Ba/Al ratio of 0.0070 is similar to global crustal average values. In the southern Nordic Seas the high input of basaltic material with a low Ba/Al ratio is evident from high values of magnetic susceptibility and low Al/Ti ratios. Most of the Ba in the marine surface sediments is of terrigenous and not of biogenic origin. Variability in the lithogenic composition has been considered by the application of regionally varying Ba/Al ratios. The biogenic Ba values are comparable with those observed in the central Arctic Ocean, they are lower than in other oceanic regions. Biogenic Ba values are correlated with other productivity proxies and with oceanographic data for a validation of the applicability in paleoceanography. In the Iceland Sea and partly in the marginal sea-ice zone of the Greenland Sea elevated values of biogenic Ba indicate seasonal phytoplankton blooms. In both areas paleoproductivities may be reconstructed based on Ba and Al data of sediment cores.

Mineralogy, geochemistry and elemental ratios of ODP Core 171B-1049C-8X

Inorganic geochemistry and mineralogy of Core 171B-1049C-8X, containing a Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary section, was investigated by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The ages of samples analyzed stretched from the latest Maastrichtian into the Danian. XRD measurements were made using the peak height method. A reduction in low-magnesium calcite and an increase in quartz were found above the spherule layer. Substantial amounts of dolomite were noted just above the spherule layer. XRF analyses were performed using the RHSMALL program to measure the abundance of major and minor elements. Replicate analyses for each technique were performed to assess the precision of the results. The section above the spherule bed was found to be characterized by peaks in many elements, including Si, Al, Fe, and Mg, as well as the following elemental ratios: Fe/Al, Ni/Al, Zr/Rb, and Rb/Sr'. Above the spherule bed, there were significant reductions in Ca, Sr/Ca, Ti/Al, K/Al, Rb/Al, Cr/Al, Ba/Al, biogenic Ba, and excess P.

Öate Cretaceous to early Paleogene nutrient and paleoproductivity records of ODP Leg 171 sites

We evaluate phosphorus (P) and biogenic barium (bio-Ba) as nutrient burial and export productivity indicators for the Late Cretaceous and early Paleogene, combining these with calcium carbonate (CaCO3), organic carbon (C), and bulk CaCO3 C isotopes (d13C). Sample ages span 36-71 Ma (~1 sample/0.5 m.y.) for a depth transect of sites in the western North Atlantic (Blake Nose, Ocean Drilling Program Leg 171B, Sites 1052, 1051, and 1050). We use a multitracer approach including redox conditions to investigate export productivity surrounding the global Paleocene d13C maximum (~57 Ma). Reducing conditions render most of the bio-Ba record not useful for export productivity interpretations. P and organic C records indicate that regional nutrient and organic C burial were high at ~61 and ~69 Ma, and low during the Paleocene d13C maximum, a time of proposed global high relative organic C burial. Observed organic C burial changes at Blake Nose cannot explain this C isotope excursion.

Late Pleistocene sedimentation in the Western Mediterranean Sea

Sediment cores from the Western Mediterranean Sea (WMS) have been analyzed for their bulk element composition, delta18O values of planktic foraminiferal tests, and 87Sr/86Sr and 143Nd/144Nd ratios of their bulk lithogenic components. The investigated time interval comprises the last 215 kyr. Si/Al and Ti/Al ratios as well as radiogenic isotope compositions indicate changes in the provenance of the lithogenic components between glacial intervals and interglacial phases. Comparison with modern data indicates that detrital input from the northwestern and northeastern Sahara may have dominated during interglacial phases. In contrast, during glacial periods the accumulation rate of terrigenous sediment is high and changes in the sediment source areas are evident that may be related to changes in the prevailing atmospheric circulation over the basin and its source areas. A productivity reconstruction based on bio-mediated barium accumulation rates reveals increased surface productivity during glacial phases. Intervals time-equivalent to sapropel formation in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea (EMS) show no changes in surface productivity compared to the intervening intervals. Comparison of the productivity patterns between the WMS and EMS suggests a decoupling during Late Pleistocene sapropel formation and highlights the importance of more localized factors such as the freshwater drainage basin.