{"title":"Shifting Depth Distributions of Deep‐Sea Corals in the Southwest Pacific: Implications for Deglacial Dynamics of the Southern Ocean","authors":"Ronald E. Thresher, Stewart J. Fallon","doi":"10.1029/2023pa004824","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"We compare depth and temporal distributions of sub‐fossil assemblages of two cold‐water scleractinian corals on seamounts in the Southwest Pacific to help define the temporal variations of water mass properties in the Southern Ocean (SO) during deglaciation. Peaks in the deep‐water abundance of the two species complement one another, with Desmophyllum dianthus peaking around the Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR), and Solenosmilia variabilis briefly during the late Heinrich Stadial 1 (HS1) and during the Younger Dryas (YD). Environmental tolerances of the two species and the geochemistry of S. variabilis carbonate skeletons suggest that their secular distributions reflect complementary effects of temperature (higher at Antarctic Intermediate Water/Upper Circumpolar Deep Water depths during the YD and late HS1) and surface productivity (lower during the YD and HS1). Higher temperatures at depth we interpret as evidence of increased Zonal West Wind (ZWW)‐driven Ekman pumping during the late HS1 and YD, whereas coeval low surface production reflects poleward expansion of sub‐tropical water masses as a result of correlated poleward shifts of the ZWW belt and the Intertropical Convergence Zone. More broadly, a continuous deep coral population in the southwest Pacific that spans two species and three deglacial periods (HS1, ACR and the YD) and an early Holocene shift in coral distribution from deeper to shallower habitats appear to reflect large‐scale changes during deglaciation in SO temperature profiles and productivity.","PeriodicalId":54239,"journal":{"name":"Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1029/2023pa004824","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"GEOSCIENCES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We compare depth and temporal distributions of sub‐fossil assemblages of two cold‐water scleractinian corals on seamounts in the Southwest Pacific to help define the temporal variations of water mass properties in the Southern Ocean (SO) during deglaciation. Peaks in the deep‐water abundance of the two species complement one another, with Desmophyllum dianthus peaking around the Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR), and Solenosmilia variabilis briefly during the late Heinrich Stadial 1 (HS1) and during the Younger Dryas (YD). Environmental tolerances of the two species and the geochemistry of S. variabilis carbonate skeletons suggest that their secular distributions reflect complementary effects of temperature (higher at Antarctic Intermediate Water/Upper Circumpolar Deep Water depths during the YD and late HS1) and surface productivity (lower during the YD and HS1). Higher temperatures at depth we interpret as evidence of increased Zonal West Wind (ZWW)‐driven Ekman pumping during the late HS1 and YD, whereas coeval low surface production reflects poleward expansion of sub‐tropical water masses as a result of correlated poleward shifts of the ZWW belt and the Intertropical Convergence Zone. More broadly, a continuous deep coral population in the southwest Pacific that spans two species and three deglacial periods (HS1, ACR and the YD) and an early Holocene shift in coral distribution from deeper to shallower habitats appear to reflect large‐scale changes during deglaciation in SO temperature profiles and productivity.
期刊介绍:
Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology (PALO) publishes papers dealing with records of past environments, biota and climate. Understanding of the Earth system as it was in the past requires the employment of a wide range of approaches including marine and lacustrine sedimentology and speleothems; ice sheet formation and flow; stable isotope, trace element, and organic geochemistry; paleontology and molecular paleontology; evolutionary processes; mineralization in organisms; understanding tree-ring formation; seismic stratigraphy; physical, chemical, and biological oceanography; geochemical, climate and earth system modeling, and many others. The scope of this journal is regional to global, rather than local, and includes studies of any geologic age (Precambrian to Quaternary, including modern analogs). Within this framework, papers on the following topics are to be included: chronology, stratigraphy (where relevant to correlation of paleoceanographic events), paleoreconstructions, paleoceanographic modeling, paleocirculation (deep, intermediate, and shallow), paleoclimatology (e.g., paleowinds and cryosphere history), global sediment and geochemical cycles, anoxia, sea level changes and effects, relations between biotic evolution and paleoceanography, biotic crises, paleobiology (e.g., ecology of “microfossils” used in paleoceanography), techniques and approaches in paleoceanographic inferences, and modern paleoceanographic analogs, and quantitative and integrative analysis of coupled ocean-atmosphere-biosphere processes. Paleoceanographic and Paleoclimate studies enable us to use the past in order to gain information on possible future climatic and biotic developments: the past is the key to the future, just as much and maybe more than the present is the key to the past.