Dinoflagelates - recorder of Palaeogene oceanic Ca budget and climate variabilities (Dinolores)

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The aim of lODP Expeditions 320 and 321 (March - July 2009) is to retrieve well preserved sediment records from the equatorial eastern Pacific. For selection of the drilling locations, special emphasis was laid on obtaining well preserved continuous core material that, provides an excellent archive for paleoceanographic reconstructions of the Palaeogene, a time of rapid and extreme climate variability. Besides environmental parameters like sea surface temperature (SST), salinity and productivity, the oceanic Ca budget is an important factor for modeling past carbon cycling and global climate changes. Calcium isotopes have been used for the reconstruction of the oceanic Ca budget in the Neogene and parts of the Mesozoic, Paleozoic and Precambrian. The aim of the proposed project is to use calcareous dinoflagellate cysts of the sediment record obtained during Expeditions 320/321 to reconstruct the fluctuations in the oceanic δ44/40Ca and Ca-budget during the Palaeogene. Calcareous dinoflagellate cysts of Thoracosphaera heimii have the potential to preserve a long term record of δ44/40Ca. On the same species δ18O and Sr/Ca ratios will be analysed for the reconstruction of Palaeogene SST and salinity.