Mg/Ca of Continental Ostracode Shells
Abstract
Marine ionic chemistry is thought to remain constant. This, together with the belief that marine calcifiers partition Mg/Ca in a systematic manner as functions of temperature (and Mg/Ca) of water forms the basis of the Mg/Ca thermometer. In continental settings both of these assumptions are usually not true. Continental waters contain a wide variety of solutes in absolute and relative ion concentrations. Hence, waters with identical Mg/Ca may have very different concentrations of Mg and Ca and very different anions. Here we use two examples to focus on the effects of ion chemistry on Mg/Ca partitioning in continental ostracode shells and we ignore the complexities of solute evolution, which can change Mg/Ca over timescales of minutes to millennia. Palacios-Fest and Dettman (2001) conducted a monthly study of ,Cypridopsis vidua at El Yeso Lake in Sonora, Mexico. They established a relation between temperature and average shell Mg/Ca using regression analyses on averaged data. When their Mg/Ca-temperature relation is applied to monthly ,C. vidua data from Page Pond near Cleveland, Ohio, water temperatures of -8 to -1°C are obtained. The observed Mg/Ca ranges for El Yeso Lake (0.31 to 0.46) and Page Pond (0.33 to 0.46) are similar, as are their specific conductivities (700 to 850μS for El Yeso Lake; 400 to 600μS for Page Pond). However, [Ca] is 140-260 mg/L for El Yeso, but only 70-90 mg/L for Page Pond. Page Pond data, in fact, shows a good temperature shell Mg/Ca relation for .C. vidua, but the relation is different from that at El Yeso. Hence, shell Mg/Ca is a multi-valued, family of curves function of temperature and Mg/Ca of water that depends on the [Mg] and [Ca] values in water and perhaps other factors. Our second example comes from sites near Valencia, Spain and involves shell data for ,Cyprideis torosa, an estuarine ostracode that is tolerant of a wide range of salinity and can live in continental waters as long as the carbonate alkalinity to Ca ratio is low. The water bodies near Valencia, Spain, range from 200mg/L to 65g/L with both [Mg] and [Ca] increasing with TDS, but at different rates because of carbonate precipitation. The lowest Mg/Ca was 0.5 in a dilute spring and the highest 6.5 in an evaporation pond with temperature at all sites being similar and highly variable. The observed Mg/Ca of the shells from all sites was generally between 0.005 and 0.025, but at any one site the range was only about 0.01 even at sites with monthly data for a full year, so capturing a wider range of temperature. So, unlike the first example, the low Mg/Ca range at individual sites seems to preclude defining a shell Mg temperature relation. In fact, the data show that very different TDS and different solute Mg/Ca result in a narrow range of shell Mg/Ca, as though ,C. torosa lived at a site with low temperature variability. Of interest, calculation of shell metal distribution coefficients, Kd, shows it goes from 0.025 for the dilute water to 0.005 for saline waters indicating that Kd is TDS dependent at these sites because the solutes all lie on a single solute evolution trend. These examples illustrate what can happen if ionic chemistry and TDS of seawater changes on glacial to interglacial or longer timescales, or if the same thermometer is applied to coastal settings. Palacios-Fest, M.R., and Dettman, D.L., 2001, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, v. 65, p. 2499-2507.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2007
- Bibcode:
- 2007AGUFMPP31B0416I
- Keywords:
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- 0409 Bioavailability: chemical speciation and complexation;
- 0419 Biomineralization;
- 0454 Isotopic composition and chemistry (1041;
- 4870)