A Half-Million Year Geochemical Record of Climate from Cariaco Basin

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The Cariaco Basin, a deep, presently anoxic depression along the northern margin of Venezuela, has proven to be an important repository of paleoclimatic information by virtue of its rapidly accumulating, virtually undisturbed sediments. Focusing on the core with the longest sediment sequence currently available (ODP1002), this research will generate the first continuous decadal resolution marine record of climate and environmental change over the last ~550,000 years. The researchers employ XRF scanning to generate high-resolution geochemical records from Termination II (~140,000 years ago) back to the base of the recovered sequence, providing a cost-efficient and logical extension of high resolution XRF scanning already completed on the younger part of the core. The XRF data will provide insights into the rates and magnitudes of climate change on multiple timescales and over multiple glacial-interglacial cycles when natural climate forcing differed substantially. The data will shed light on tropical climate sensitivity on the timescale of human generations. Graduate and undergraduate students will be involved in the research.