Reconstructing dust fluxes and paleoproductivity at the southern Agulhas Plateau since MIS-6
Abstract
Understanding the mechanisms underlying glacial-interglacial cycles requires characterizing the role of oceanic feedbacks in climatic changes. For example, increased aeolian iron fluxes to Fe-limited regions of the ocean and corresponding changes in marine productivity could have improved biological pump efficiency and resulted in CO2 drawdown. Here we explore these feedbacks using marine sediment core MDO2-2588 collected from the southern Agulhas Plateau (SAP; 41°S, 26°E), located beneath the modern subtropical front. Today, diatom productivity in this region is Si-limited because high Si utilization south of the polar front (PF) means that water advected northward to our study site is Si-depleted. However, previous work has suggested that extended sea ice cover during glacial periods may have limited diatom productivity south of the PF while frontal systems shifted northward, allowing more Si to reach thermocline of the SAP. Meanwhile, increased glacial dust flux to the SAP may have simultaneously supplied more Fe, contributing to higher glacial productivity. This hypothesis has been supported by observations of higher LGM and MIS-6 productivity at MD02-2588 using bulk biogenic content and diatom assemblages (Romero et al., Paleoceanography, 30 (2015) 118-132). Gradients in d13C between benthic and planktic foraminifera have also been used to support Fe fertilization at this site on millennial timescales (Ziegler et al., Nature Geoscience, 6 (2013) 457-461). Yet, studies have yet to produce coordinated records of dust flux and export production for the SAP. Here, we present records of dust, based on 230Th-normalized 232Th fluxes, and export production using 230Th-normalized excess-Ba and opal fluxes and authigenic U through MIS-6. Preliminary results show that lithogenic fluxes to MD02-2588 were approximately twice as high during MIS-6 as MIS-5e and were concurrent with a two-fold increase in excess-Ba flux. However, this relative increase in lithogenic flux during glacials is smaller than the four-fold relative increase in glacial dust flux previously observed in the central South Atlantic (Martínez-García et al., Science, 343 (2014) 1347-1350), motivating future work to study how dust and productivity vary along a zonal transect away from a dust source between glacial and interglacial periods.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017AGUFMPP21C1276F
- Keywords:
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- 0305 Aerosols and particles;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 3344 Paleoclimatology;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 4904 Atmospheric transport and circulation;
- PALEOCEANOGRAPHY;
- 4914 Continental climate records;
- PALEOCEANOGRAPHY