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Science 17 October 1980:
Vol. 210. no. 4467, pp. 323 - 325
DOI: 10.1126/science.210.4467.323
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Articles

Episodic Ice-Free Arctic Ocean in Pliocene and Pleistocene Time: Calcareous Nannofossil Evidence

THOMAS R. WORSLEY 1 and YVONNE HERMAN 2

1 Department of Geology, Ohio University, Athens 45701
2 Department of Geology, Washington State University, Pullman 99164

Today's ice cover (2 to 4 meters thick) over the Arctic Ocean provides a shadow that prevents coccolithophorids (photosynthetic, planktonic algae) from living there. Sparse, low-diversity, but indigenous coccolith assemblages in late Pliocene to mid-Pleistocene (but not Holocene) sediments imply deep penetrating warm currents or an ice-free Arctic Ocean, or both, as those layers were being deposited.

Submitted on January 8, 1980
Revised on June 17, 1980

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