Collaborative Research: Reconstructing the Temperature and Salinity of the Glacial Ocean from Deep-Sea Pore Fluids

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Summary: This study is will obtain data on oxygen isotope, deuterium/hydrogen and chloride values in pore waters from deep sea sediments to reconstruct the temperature, salinity, and oxygen isotope composition of deep ocean waters during the last glacial maximum. The measurements will allow construction of vertical density gradients of the glacial ocean and allow a test of the concept that deep water production was controlled by sea ice during glacial intervals and that the relationship between isotopic composition of sea water and salinity observed in the modern ocean may not hold for the last glacial maximum.