Late Quaternary Paleoceanography of the Arctic Ocean

这笔赠款支持的9400255布里格斯研究是在北极系统科学全球变化研究计划和极地计划办公室极地地球科学计划下进行的。这项研究将围绕着对北冰洋从未被广泛研究的部分进行一次独特的、密集的、多学科的研究考察。1994年美国/加拿大北冰洋部分是与加拿大的一项合作努力，将有大约60名科学家在1994年夏天在一艘加拿大破冰船和一艘美国破冰船上工作。NSF资助的项目将集中在水文地理学、生物学、古生物和海冰研究上。从北冰洋几个地区收集的数据将是有史以来最早的数据之一，对于增进我们对北极如何成为全球气候条件变化的指标以及它如何影响较温和海洋和地区的物理、化学和生物特征的理解，将具有非常重要的意义。这项工作是古海洋学合作计划的组成部分。工作将涉及对将在本节期间收集的沉积物样本以及加拿大地质调查局从包括加拿大北极群岛北部在内的其他几个北冰洋地点收集的现有表层沉积物中所含介形虫的研究。介形类是小型钙质双壳甲壳动物，一些底栖海洋介形类在狭窄的范围内与几个环境变量相适应，其中最重要的是温度、盐度、溶解氧、营养物质和底物。因此，介形类在海底的分布反映了底水条件，使介形类成为监测地质时期水团变化和环流异常的理想监测器。以往的研究表明，介形类在古海洋学重建水团历史方面是有用的。这项工作将有助于更好地理解现代介形类、水团和北极水深测量之间的关系；中深水介形类与大西洋和太平洋动物群之间的关系；以及全新世、末次冰川、可能是整个布鲁内斯纪时动物群历史和推断的海洋历史。

9400255 Briggs Research supported by this grant is under the Arctic Systems Science (ARCSS) Global Change Research Program and the Polar Earth Science Program in the Office of Polar Programs. The research will be centered around a unique and intensive, multidisciplinary research expedition to parts of the Arctic Ocean that have never been extensively studied. The 1994 U.S./Canada Arctic Ocean Section is a collaborative effort with Canada that will involve approximately 60 scientists on a Canadian and a U.S. icebreaker during summer 1994. NSF-funded projects will focus on hydrography, biology, paleo-, and sea-ice studies. Data collected will be amongst the first ever from several regions of the Arctic Ocean and will be highly relevant to improving our understanding of how the Arctic is an indicator of changing global climate conditions and how it affects the physical, chemical, and biological features of the more temperate oceans and regions. This work is a component of the collaborative paleoceanographic program. Work will involve research on ostracodes contained in sediment samples to be collected during the Section as well as from existing surface sediments collected by the Geological Survey of Canada, from several other Arctic Ocean sites, including the northern Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Ostracodes are small calcareous bivalved crustaceans, and some benthic marine ostracodes are attuned, within narrow limits, to several environmental variables, the most important of which are temperature, salinity, dissolved O2, nutrients, and substrate. Their distribution on the sea floor therefore reflects bottom water conditions, making ostracodes ideal monitors of water mass changes and circulation anomalies through geological time. Previous investigations have suggested that ostracodes are useful for paleoceanographic reconstructions of water-mass history. This work will provide a better understanding of the relationship between modern ostracodes, water masses, and Arctic bathymetry; of the relationship between intermediate depth and deep water ostracodes and Atlantic and Pacific faunas, and of faunal history and inferred ocean history during the Holocene, the Last Glaciation, and possibly the whole of the Brunhes Epoch.