Quantitative Diatom Analysis from Antarctic Peninsula Surface Sediments and a Test of Paleoclimatic Utility

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9218951 Leventer This award supports a study of the relationship between diatom assemblages in surface sediments (from existing samples) along a latitudinal transect and current oceanographic and environmental conditions along the transect. This work will determine the viability of using diatom assemblages as proxy records of climate since the last glacial maximum. The work will use quantitative methods to describe diatom assemblages and will include a test of the model developed by studying diatoms in two sediment cores, one from Bransfield Strait (open water) and the other from a fjord in Gerlache Strait, in which there are already some paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental indicators to use as a baseline. This study is essential to the development of viable models relating records of biological activity, and in particular diatom producing algae, to climatic and environmental conditions. ***