Age, 232Th, 230Th, 238U, CaCO3, organic carbon, lithogenic fraction, opal, and iron concentrations of 4 sediment cores from the southwest Pacific, with calculated 230Th-normalized mass flux

DOI

Increased export production (EP) in the Subantarctic Zone (SAZ) of the Southern Ocean due to iron fertilisation has been proposed as a key mechanism for explaining carbon drawdown during the last glacial maximum (LGM). This work reconstructs marine EP since the LGM at four sites around New Zealand. For the first time in this region, 230-Thorium-normalised fluxes of biogenic opal, carbonate, excess barium, and organic carbon are presented. In Subtropical Waters and the SAZ, these flux variations show that EP has not changed markedly since the LGM. The only exception is a site currently north of the subtropical front. Here we suggest the subtropical front shifted over the core site between 18 and 12 ka, driving increased EP. To understand why EP remained mostly low and constant elsewhere, lithogenic fluxes at the four sites were measured to investigate changes in dust deposition. At all sites, lithogenic fluxes were greater during the LGM compared to the Holocene. The positive temporal correlation between the Antarctic dust record and lithogenic flux at a site in the Tasman Sea shows that regionally, increased dust deposition contributed to the high glacial lithogenic fluxes. Additionally, it is inferred that lithogenic material from erosion and glacier melting deposited on the Campbell Plateau during the deglaciation (18-12 ka). From these observations, it is proposed that even though increased glacial dust deposition may have relieved iron limitation within the SAZ around New Zealand, the availability of silicic acid limited diatom growth and thus any resultant increase in carbon export during the LGM. Therefore, silicic acid concentrations have remained low since the LGM. This result suggests that both silicic acid and iron co-limit EP in the SAZ around New Zealand, consistent with modern process studies.

Supplement to: Durand, Axel; Chase, Zanna; Noble, Taryn L; Bostock, Helen C; Jaccard, Samuel L; Kitchener, Priya; Townsend, Ashley T; Jansen, Nils; Kinsley, Les; Jacobsen, Geraldine; Johnson, Sean; Neil, Helen L (2017): Export production in the New-Zealand region since the Last Glacial Maximum. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 469, 110-122

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.864678
Related Identifier IsSupplementTo https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2017.03.035
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.864678
Provenance
Creator Durand, Axel; Chase, Zanna (ORCID: 0000-0001-5060-779X); Noble, Taryn L (ORCID: 0000-0002-5708-751X); Bostock, Helen C ORCID logo; Jaccard, Samuel L ORCID logo; Kitchener, Priya; Townsend, Ashley T ORCID logo; Jansen, Nils; Kinsley, Les; Jacobsen, Geraldine; Johnson, Sean ORCID logo; Neil, Helen L
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2017
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Supplementary Dataset; Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 881 data points
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (166.061W, -50.223S, 177.345E, -40.508N); South Pacific/Tasman Sea/PLATEAU; South Pacific Ocean
Temporal Coverage Begin 1982-12-28T00:00:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2008-04-15T00:00:00Z