Description: A multiproxy geochemical study of nine sapropel layers from ODP Hole 964A, ODP Leg 160 in the eastern Mediterranean spanning the Pliocene-Holocene time interval provides new insights into the evolution of sapropel deposition. Paleoenvironmental proxies were used for reconstruction of productivity (Ba derived from marine barite), oxygen conditions (trace metal ratios) and sedimentary regime (clay minerals, detrital elements). These proxies reveal a significant increase in river runoff relative to decreasing aeolian input during sapropel deposition over the whole time interval. Ba excess supports the argument that a significant increase in export productivity is the main triggering mechanism for sapropel deposition, although preservation also played an important role. Furthermore, major differences exist in depositional conditions, including both oxygenation and productivity since the Pliocene. Productivity fluctuated substantially and was higher during the Pliocene and Pleistocene than during the Holocene; at the same time decreasing oxygen availability parallels the enhanced productivity. Dysoxic to anoxic conditions appear to coincide with marine productivity maxima, thus suggesting that oxygen depletion may be linked to greater consumption rather than restricted circulation. This correspondence supports the hypothesis that productivity fluctuations resulting from climate oscillations were the main cause of enhanced organic matter contents and also a main controlling factor for reduced oxygen availability.

Description: Alkenone unsaturation ratios and planktonic delta18O records from sediment cores of the Alboran, Ionian and Levantine basins in the Mediterranean Sea show pronounced variations in paleo-temperatures and -salinities of surface waters over the last 16,000 years. Average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are low during the last glacial (averages prior to 13,000 years: 11-15°C), vary rapidly at the beginning of the Holocene, and increase to 17-18°C at all sites during S1 formation (dated between 9500 and 6600 calendar years). The modern temperature gradient (2-3°C) between the Mediterranean sub-basins is maintained during formation of sapropel S1 in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. After S1, SSTs have remained uniform in the Alboran Sea at 18°C and have fluctuated around 20°C in the Ionian and Levantine Basin sites. The delta18O of planktonic foraminifer calcite decreases by 2 per mil from the late glacial to S1 sediments in the Ionian Basin and by 2.8 per mil in the Levantine Basin. In the Alboran Sea, the decrease is 1.7 per mil. Of the 2.8 per mil decrease in the Levantine Basin, the effect of global ice volume accounts for a maximum of 1.05 per mil and the temperature increase explains only a maximum of 1.3 per mil. The remainder is attributed to salinity changes. We use the temperature and salinity estimates to calculate seawater density changes. They indicate that a reversal of water mass circulation is not a likely explanation for increased carbon burial during S1 time. Instead, it appears that intermediate and deep water formation may have shifted to the Ionian Sea approximately 2000 years before onset of S1 deposition, because surface waters were as cold, but saltier than surface water in the Levantine Basin during the Younger Dryas. Sapropel S1 began to form at the same time, when a significant density decrease also occurred in the Ionian Sea.