Description: We evaluated the response of eastern equatorial Pacific upper water column hydrography to the Panama seaway closure and the initiation of large-scale northern hemisphere glaciation, The d18O gradient between Globorotalia tumida and Globigerinoides sacculifer indicates a general shoaling of the thermocline between 4.2 and 3.0 Ma which may be related to a recorded decrease in southeast trade wind strength. The d13C gradients suggest that surface water nutrient concentrations have increased during the last 5 Myr and that upwelling intermediate waters began to change sources at ~3.2 Ma. Changes in the trans-Pacific east-west temperature and nutrient gradients at 4.0 and 1.5 Ma are coincident with the seaway closure and a major phase of northern hemisphere glaciation. Changes in the sensitivity of surface circulation to Milankovitch forcing, d18O records linearly related to orbital variations only after 3.2 Ma, are associated with the seaway closure. Pleistocene initiation of 100 and 41 kyr cycles in the thermocline depth proxy may suggest that the hydrographic response to Milankovitch forcing is enhanced by air-sea interactions which maintain the relatively steep Pleistocene trans-Pacific gradients. The d13C records are dominated by the 41 kyr period and are usually coherent with high-latitude climate, suggesting that associated changes in the global carbon reservoir dominate the tropical d13C signals.

Description: Recent modeling studies call on increased ocean heat transport to explain high-latitude warming observed for intervals throughout the middle Pliocene. Possible vehicles for ocean heat transport are the poleward arms of the subtropical gyres. Sites from the California margin (Ocean Drilling Program Leg 167) provide monitors of wind field within the eastern arm of the gyre which may be an indication of basin-wide subtropical gyral strength. At most sites (water depths from 1106 to 4212 m) CaCO3 mass accumulation rate (MAR) was highest in the middle Pliocene (3.5-2.0 Ma). This high CaCO3 MAR 'event' is attributed primarily to higher CaCO3 production due to higher offshore upwelling associated with the zone of the greatest wind stress curl. Thus, in the middle Pliocene, there was enhanced wind stress curl along the California margin, and possibly enhanced North Pacific sub-tropical gyral circulation and meridional ocean heat advection.

Description: In order to examine whether the paleoceanographic nutrient proxies, d13C and cadmium/calcium in foraminiferal calcite, are well coupled to nutrients in the region of North Atlantic Deep Water formation, we present da ta from two transects of the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian Seas. Along Transect A (74.3°N, 18.3°E to 75.0°N, 12.5°W, 15 stations), we measured phosphate and Cd concentrations of modern surface sea water. Along Transect B (64.5°N, 0.7°W to 70.4°N, 18.2°W, 14 stations) we measured Cd/Ca ratios and d13C of the planktonic foraminifera Neogloboquadrina pachyderma sinistral in core top sediments. Our results indicate that Cd and phosphate both vary with surface water mass and are well correlated along Transect A. Our planktonic foraminiferal d13C data indicate similar nutrient variation with water mass along Transect B. Our Cd/Ca data hint at the same type of nutrient variability, but interpretations are hampered by low values close to the detection limit of this technique and therefore relatively large error bars. We also measured Cd and phosphate concentrations in water depth profiles at three sites along Transect A and the d13C of the benthic foraminifera Cibicidoides wuellerstorfi along Transect B. Modern sea water depth profiles along Transect A have nutrient depletions at the surface and then constant values at depths greater than 100 meters. The d13C of planktonic and benthic foraminifera from Transect B plotted versus depth also reflect surface nutrient depletion and deep nutrient enrichment as seen at Transect A, with a small difference between intermediate and deep waters. Overall we see no evidence for decoupling of Cd/Ca ratio and d13C in foraminiferal calcite from water column nutrient concentrations along these transects in a region of North Atlantic Deep Water formation.