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Science 15 October 1993:
Vol. 262. no. 5132, pp. 407 - 410
DOI: 10.1126/science.262.5132.407
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Articles

Isotopic Evidence for Reduced Productivity in the Glacial Southern Ocean

A. Shemesh 1, S. A. Macko 2, C. D. Charles 3, and G. H. Rau 4

1 Department of Environmental Sciences and Energy Research, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100 Israel
2 Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903
3 Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093
4 Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064

Records of carbon and nitrogen isotopes in biogenic silica and carbon isotopes in planktonic foraminifera from deep-sea sediment cores from the Southern Ocean reveal that the primary production during the last glacial maximum was lower than Holocene productivity. These observations conflict with the hypothesis that the low atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were introduced by an increase in the efficiency of the high-latitude biological pump. Instead, different oceanic sectors may have had high glacial productivity, or alternative mechanisms that do not involve the biological pump must be considered as the primary cause of the low glacial atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

Submitted on May 5, 1993
Accepted on August 16, 1993


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Monsoon-driven export fluxes and early diagenesis of particulate nitrogen and its {delta}15N across the Somalia margin.
G. J. A. Brummer, H. T. Kloosterhuis, and W. Helder (2002)
Geological Society, London, Special Publications 195, 353-370
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)