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Reconstruction of the Amazon Basin Effective Moisture Availability over the Past 14,000 Years
Mark A. Maslin,1*and Stephen J. Burns2
Quantifying the moisture history of the Amazon Basin is
essential for understanding the cause of rain forest diversity andits
potential as a methane source. We reconstructed the AmazonRiver
outflow history for the past 14,000 years to provide a moisturebudget
for the river drainage basin. The oxygen isotopic compositionof
planktonic foraminifera recovered from a marine sediment corein a
region of Amazon River discharge shows that the Amazon Basinwas
extremely dry during the Younger Dryas, with the dischargereduced by
at least 40% as compared with that of today. Afterthe Younger Dryas,
a meltwater-driven discharge event was followedby a steady increase in
the Amazon Basin effective moisture throughoutthe Holocene.
1 Environmental Change Research Centre,
Department of Geography, University College London, 26 Bedford Way,
London, WC1H 0AP, UK.
2 Stable Isotope Laboratory,
Geological Institute, University of Berne, Baltzerstrasse 1, CH-3012 Berne, Switzerland.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
mmaslin{at}geog.ucl.ac.uk
Present address: Department of Geosciences, Morrill Science
Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA.
The editors suggest the following Related Resources on Science sites:
In Science Magazine
PERSPECTIVES
Julio L. Betancourt (22 December 2000) Science290 (5500), 2274.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.290.5500.2274] |Summary »|Full Text »
REPORTS
Francis E. Mayle, Rachel Burbridge, and Timothy J. Killeen (22 December 2000) Science290 (5500), 2291.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.290.5500.2291] |Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »|Supplemental Data »
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