The missing link to understand Plio-Pleistocene changes in southeast Pacific oceanography, productivity, and El Nino behavior - SE trade wind strength and its dust transport

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One of the fundamental missing links in understanding Pliocene and Pleistocene changes in southeast Pacific oceanography, productivity and El Nino behavior as well as associated variations in thermocline depth, upwelling and dust fertilisation is the knowledge of changes in southest trade wind strength and dust transport on millennial and orbital time scales. Our study aims to reconstruct changes in South American continental aridity, dust supply and trade wind strength at ODP Sites 1237 and 1239, as both sites underlie the modern path of eolian transport from the Atacama desert in northern Chile and Peru. Our investigations will concentrate on four key intervals that are considered to reflect major steps in late Neogene climate evolution: the late Pleistocene amplification of glacial/interglacial variability (0-1 Ma), the Plio-PIeistocene transition (1.5-2 Ma), the Pliocene intensification of the Northern Hemisphere Glaciation (2.4- 3.1 Ma), and the Pliocene warm period (4-5 Ma).