The Oxygen and Hydrogen Isotopic Composition of Pleistocene Sea Water

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The PI proposes to determine the oxygen isotopic composition of seawater during the last ice age by directly measuring the isotopic composition of seawater trapped in the skeleton of corals which grew during the ice age. The oxygen isotopic composition of the ice-age ocean is important to know because it is a function of the ice volume of the continental glaciers. That ice volume can only be estimated now because the only way to determine the ice-age isotopic value is to measure the value in the carbonate from fossil foraminifera; the measured value, however, will be affected by both ice volume and the temperature of the ocean in the place where the foraminifera lived. The PI proposes to measure the isotopic value of seawater extracted from ice-age coral so that it will not be necessary to estimate the value based on some assumptions which may not be accurate. The results would be important for determining the temperature of the ice-age ocean from foraminiferal carbonate after the ice volume effect is determined and removed.