The growth and decay of large ice sheets over the North American continent during the last glacial period had far reaching effects on climate and ocean circulation. Meltwater input into the oceans during deglaciation caused sea level to rise and has been invoked as a cause for rapid climate change. However, the relative volumetric contributions of individual meltwater pulses has been difficult to constrain, and often relies on assumptions about the stable isotope composition of the North American (Laurentide) ice sheet meltwater geochemistry. The fact that the ice sheets themselves had heterogeneous compositions, varying in both time and space, makes reconstruction a challenge.
This research, carried out by scientists at the University of California at Davis, develops a novel technique to determine the instantaneous oxygen isotope composition of meltwater from the North American ice sheet. Measurements of both trace element (Mg/Ca and Ba/Ca) and oxygen isotope (δ18O) composition will be made on individual shells of planktonic foraminifera preserved in sediments of the Gulf of Mexico. Specific goals of the project are to: 1) refine the sample preparation and measurement protocols, 2) improve the calibration of the Ba/Ca salinity proxy, 3) test the technique by computing modern Mississippi River water using the new method, and 4) compute the oxygen isotope composition or river/meltwater during selected intervals of the deglaciation (Termination I) and Marine Isotope Stage 3.
In terms of broader impacts, funding supports a female doctoral candidate and offers the opportunity for undergraduates to be exposed to state of the art analytical methods. The methods developed in the course of this work method could potentially be widely applied in paleoceanographic studies.
