Comparing microfossil shell weight from two locations on the California coast to understand controls on bottom water carbonate chemistry over the past 14 ka

Foraminiferal shell weight has been utilized, primarily in planktonic foraminifera, to understand changes in seawater carbonate ion concentration in the geologic past. Such data can provide important insight into the natural and anthropogenic processes that induce variability in the pH and carbonate ion content of seawater. This study investigated shell weights of benthic foraminifera (E. hannai, U. peregrina and B. argentea) using sediment cores from two California sites: Tomales Bay (3 m water depth), a narrow estuary in Northern California, and Santa Barbara Basin (from 400 m) within the Southern California Bight. Based upon sedimentation rates derived from radiocarbon analyses and oxygen isotopic stratigraphy, the Tomales Bay core (2.95 mm/year) extends back ~1000 years b.p., and the Santa Barbara Basin record (~80 cm/ka) extends back to 16 ka b.p. In Tomales Bay, two decreases in shell weight of E. hannai correlate to historically-documented increases in rainfall (404 and 595 years b.p.). At the top of the core a decrease in shell weight and an overall decrease in E. hannai population may correlate to human impacts on the estuary, including land use changes that caused localized “acidification”. In Santa Barbara Basin, shell weight measurements of B. argentea do not exhibit significant variability; however, U. peregrina shell weights increase during the early Holocene, indicating a potential relationship between increased upwelling/productivity at the surface and optimal foraminiferal growth conditions at 400m. Both B. argentea and U. peregrina document a decrease in shell weight over the past 3ka making it difficult to ascertain any anthropogenic influence in the upper most sediments of the core. Further work is needed to understand the roles of carbonate ion content and foraminiferal growth conditions in forcing shell weight changes in benthic foraminifera.