Integrated stratigraphy of the Eocene Wilkes Land Margin, Antarctica; preliminary results from IODP Expedition 318; Dinoflagellate cysts
Abstract
The northern mid-latitudes represent one of the most data-rich regions of the planet for studies of late-Quaternary paleoclimate and paleoecology. The development of well-integrated databases and the tools to mine, visualize and analyze this data have led to a number of synthetic studies looking at changes over time and space. Pollen records are perhaps the most spatial extensive source of information, and we present here a review of some recent work using these records to look at the spatial patterning of paleoclimate changes across eastern North America and Europe. At millennial scale, the results show remarkable spatial coherency in paleoenivronmental changes throughout the Holocene period, and a temporal consistency reflecting orbital-driven climate change. Comparison with output from transient paleo-GCM simulations shows that simulations capture the magnitude, but not the spatial pattern of these changes, with higher latitudes simulated climates often closer to the observations. Results from individual high time resolution sites show a number of abrupt events embedded within these longer-term changes. Using a subset of high-resolution, well dated sites, we present further results showing the timing and spatial pattern of these events for these two regions. These show the expected wide-spread impact of the major climatic transitions (e.g. Holocene start), however other abrupt events have a more regional expression.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AGUFMPP44A..01B
- Keywords:
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- 4950 PALEOCEANOGRAPHY / Paleoecology;
- 4952 PALEOCEANOGRAPHY / Palynology;
- 4954 PALEOCEANOGRAPHY / Sea surface temperature;
- 1616 GLOBAL CHANGE Climate variability;
- 1605 GLOBAL CHANGE Abrupt/rapid climate change;
- 0473 BIOGEOSCIENCES Paleoclimatology and paleoceanography