The data were raised to compare the history of sea-surface temperature (based on the alkenone unsaturation index UK'37), organic and inorganic carbon accumulation, and the ratio of stable nitrogen isotopes 15N and 14N in the Western Mediterranean Basin to that of coeval cores from the Eastern Mediterranean basin. There, periodic anoxia caused the deposition of organic-carbon-rich sapropels over the same time interval in the late Quaternary, but are not expressed in the western basin. The gravity core was taken on the Balearic Rise and was recovered during expedition Meteor 40/4 from 1900 m water depth.

Methods:Samples were obtained from cores taken aboard r/v Meteor either during the expedition or in the Core Repository of the Institute of Baltic Sea Research. Samples were punched out of the working halves with sawn-off syringes, wrapped in plastic, and stored frozen until freeze-drying in the shore-based laboratory. The dried bulk sample was homogenized by mortar and pestle.A third subsample was analysed for the delta15N of bulk sediment nitrogen in a Carlo Erba/Fisons 1108 Elemental Analyzer connected to an isotope-ratio mass-spectrometer (Finnigan Delta S). The reference gas was pure N2 nitrogen from a cylinder calibrated against IAEA standards N-1 and N-2. The standard deviation for replicate samples was less than 0.2‰.