Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.
BioJapan 2008

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Published Online October 10, 2002
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1075287

Reports

Submitted on June 20, 2002
Accepted on September 27, 2002

Spatial and Temporal Offsets Between Proxy Records in a Sediment Drift

Nao Ohkouchi 1, Timothy I. Eglinton 2*, Lloyd D. Keigwin 3, John M. Hayes 3

1 Institute for Frontier Research on Earth Evolution (IFREE), 2-15 Natsushima-cho, Yokosuka 237-0061, Japan; Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.
2 Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.
3 Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: teglinton{at}whoi.edu .

Chronologies for Late Quaternary marine sediment records are usually based on radiocarbon ages of planktonic foraminifera. Signals carried by other sedimentary components measured in parallel can provide complementary paleoclimate information. A key premise is that microfossils and other indicators within a given sediment horizon are of equal age. We show here that haptophyte-derived alkenones isolated from Bermuda Rise drift sediments are up to 7000 years older than coexisting planktonic foraminifera. This temporal offset, which is apparently due to lateral transport of alkenones on fine-grained particles from the Nova Scotian margin, markedly influences molecular estimates of sea-surface temperatures. More broadly, the observation raises questions about both the temporal and geographic fidelity of paleoenvironmental records encoded by readily transported components of sediments.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Links between the onset of modern Walker circulation and the mid-Pleistocene climate transition.
E. L. McClymont and A. Rosell-Mele (2005)
Geology 33, 389-392
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Abrupt Temperature Changes in the Western Mediterranean over the Past 250,000 Years.
B. Martrat, J. O. Grimalt, C. Lopez-Martinez, I. Cacho, F. J. Sierro, J. A. Flores, R. Zahn, M. Canals, J. H. Curtis, and D. A. Hodell (2004)
Science 306, 1762-1765
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)