HR: 0830h
AN: PP51B-0924    [PDF]
TI: Palaeoceanographic Variability of the Benguela Upwelling System Depending on the Northern Hemisphere Glaciation (NHG) - Indicated by Organic-Walled Dinoflagellates
AU: * Bork, M
EM: mbork@uni-bremen.de
AF: University of Bremen, P.O.Box 330 440, Bremen, 28334 Germany
AB: The causes and effects of the intensification of growth of the northern Hemisphere ice caps at around 3.2 and 2.74 Ma BP are still unclear. Possible causes are changes in the global ocean circulation and the global carbon cycle, which might have resulted from tectonic processes, solar insolation changes, or the interaction between both processes. The Benguela upwelling area forms a key area within the global ocean system. Here, warm and saline Indian Ocean waters enter the South Atlantic Ocean and are transported to the north. Variability of this inflow may thus result in changes in deep-water production in the North Atlantic, thereby influencing the global thermohaline circulation. Furthermore, the Benguela area is characterized by extremely high bioproductivity in surface waters as a result of year-round upwelling. Variations in the upwelling intensity might lead to changes in atmospheric ¤CO2. To study the changes in the circulation and the upwelling intensity, within this region organic-walled dinoflagellate cysts from two high-resolution cores (ODP 1084 and1082) covering the time interval from 3.3 to 2.5 Ma BP were investigated. Due to their sensitiveness to ecological parameters, organic-walled dinoflagellates reflect oceanographic characteristics keenly. The analyses discover clear distribution differences of individual species, especially of those that are sensible or resistant against aerobic decay. The sensible species, (Protoperidinium and Echinidinium), have their highest abundance from 2.76 to 2.73 Ma BP, a time interval in which the resistant species show no significant changes in their abundance. This implies that during this time interval the oxygen was reduced in the deep- and porewater suggesting that the global ocean deepwater circulation was weakened. Comparing these results with the known intensification of the NHG at around 2.74 Ma BP leads to the speculation that the increasing of ice caps in the northern hemisphere is highly associated with a lessened deep-water production in this region. Furthermore, frequency analysis show a strong compatibility between several species and the solar insolation.
DE: 3030 Micropaleontology
DE: 3344 Paleoclimatology
DE: 4267 Paleoceanography
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting