Marine palynology of the Black Sea-Medeterranean corridor

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The Black Sea-Mediterranean Corridor is a region of interconnected marine basins extending from the Black Sea to Eastern Mediterranean, at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. Since 2001, the Geological Survey Canada - Memorial University team has shown that marine palynology (study of pollen, freshwater and marine plankton spores) is the best tool to study links between climate records, archeology, and marine archives of temperature, salinity and productivity. Our studies are Canada's contribution to a United Nations program analyzing impacts of climate and sea level change on humans, and showing how regional hydrogeology affects global water cycles, salinity and heat transport in the North Atlantic. This research is vital because on both global and regional scale, changes in Earth's water cycle are the greatest challenge to society. Data from our studies are needed by Canadian climate scientists to validate computer models of ocean-atmosphere interactions. A new graduate-student project will study calcareous algal spores in the Corridor to constrain temperature and salinity estimates for 20,000-100,000 yr-long records of climate before and after human alteration of landscapes. Deep basins of the Corridor contain organic-rich sapropels, the precursors of gas and petroleum-producing black shales. Continental and marine sediments in the Marmara and Aegean Seas offer unparalled opportunity to study processes leading to oil/gas formation. Another graduate-student project will examine Aegean cores at the interface of northern trade- and southern monsoon-wind systems and analyze Marmara, Aegean and Nile records to show how atmospheric forcing and river flooding trigger sapropel formation. Outcomes will be decadal-scale pollen records tracing the history of monsoons and Nile floods, and new data on plankton production and salinity. Our new methods and access to international databases will provide insight to debates about flooding vs. carbon production export, and provide a wide range of test environments to refine climate predictions derived from Canada's palynology database. The sapropel studies will also benefit Canada's search for new offshore fuel resources.