Description: Late Miocene tectonic changes in Mediterranean–Atlantic connectivity and climatic changes caused Mediterranean salinity to fluctuate dramatically, including a ten-fold increase and near-freshening. Recent proxy- and model-based evidence suggests that at times during this Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC, 5.96–5.33 Ma), highly saline and highly fresh Mediterranean water flowed into the North Atlantic Ocean, whilst at others, no Mediterranean Outflow Water (MOW) reached the Atlantic. By running extreme, sensitivity-type experiments with a fully coupled ocean–atmosphere general circulation model, we investigate the potential of these various MSC MOW scenarios to impact global-scale climate. The simulations suggest that although the effect remains relatively small, MOW had a greater influence on North Atlantic Ocean circulation and climate than it does today. We also find that depending on the presence, strength and salinity of MOW, the MSC could have been capable of cooling mid–high northern latitudes by a few degrees, with the greatest cooling taking place in the Labrador, Greenland–Iceland–Norwegian and Barents seas. With hypersaline MOW, a component of North Atlantic Deep Water formation shifts to the Mediterranean, strengthening the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) south of 35° N by 1.5–6 Sv. With hyposaline MOW, AMOC completely shuts down, inducing a bipolar climate anomaly with strong cooling in the north (mainly −1 to −3 °C, but up to −8 °C) and weaker warming in the south (up to +0.5 to +2.7 °C). These simulations identify key target regions and climate variables for future proxy reconstructions to provide the best and most robust test cases for (a) assessing Messinian model performance, (b) evaluating Mediterranean–Atlantic connectivity during the MSC and (c) establishing whether or not the MSC could ever have affected global-scale climate.

Description: Cruise SO255 of the German Research Vessel SONNE surveyed the Kermadec Arc System from ca 35°S to 28°S in 2017. Volcanic rocks were obtained by dredge from the Neogene Colville and Kermadec ridges that represent the split remnants of the preceding Vitiaz Arc, the Havre Trough backarc and Quaternary volcanic centers of the Kermadec Arc. The overarching goal of SO255 "VITIAZ" is to elucidate the physical and chemical conditions that control the development of subduction zones, including evolution of mature arc systems, and the transition from arc splitting to back-arc basin generation. The correlated dataset reports major element data for 317 samples, trace element data for 285 samples, radiogenic Sr-Nd-Pb isotope ratios for 155 samples and radiogenic Hf isotope ratios for 88 samples. These include eight topic related samples of cruises TAN0206, TAN1611 of the New Zealand research vessel TANGAROA and one sample of cruise B30 of the Russian research vessel VOLCANOLOG.