VPW: Millenial Scale Variations in Thermohaline Circulation: A Pilo-Pleistocene Record from the ODP Leg162 North Atlantic Drift Sites

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Reconstructing and understanding past ocean circulation and heat transport are central to establishing the causes and mechanisms of long-term climate change. Ocean circulation directly influences the global environment through the formation of ice, by influencing oceanic and atmospheric CO2, and by heat transfer. Ice and marine records show millennial-scale changes in temperature and circulation during the last glacial interval, suggesting climate instability on very short time scales. The high-sedimentation-rate cores recovered during ODP Leg 162 provide a unique opportunity to investigate the millennial-scale stability of climate and thermohaline circulation over the last three million years. This will be accomplished by examining sedimentological parameters which are influenced by climate and current strength and comparing them to independently generated isotopic and faunal records. Four different climatic regimes will be investigated; the 100 kyr dominated late Pleistocene world with large marine based ice-sheets, the 41 kyr dominated world during the early Pleistocene and late Pliocene, and the mid-Pliocene warm interval before initiation of the Northern Hemisphere ice ages. Interactive activities focus on teaching a graduate course entitled "Drift Sedimentation in Modern and Ancient Oceans," collaborating with scientists at Cambridge University, and giving a lecture tour to college students in the U.S. as a U.S. Science Advisory Committee Distinguish Lecturer.