Intensification of the Northeast Pacific Oxygen Minimum Zone During the Bolling-Allerod Warm Period

Authors

Yan Zheng, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, New York
Alexander van Green, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, New York
Robert F. Anderson, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, New York
James V. Gardner, U.S. Geological Survey
Walter E. Dean, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, COFollow

Date of this Version

10-2000

Comments

Published in Paleoceanography, Vol. 15, No. 5, pages 528-536, October 2000.

Abstract

Although climate records from several locations around the world show nearly synchronous and abrupt changes, the nature of the inferred teleconnection is still poorly understood. On the basis of preserved laminations and molybdenum enrichments in open margin sediments we demonstrate that the oxygen content of northeast Pacific waters at 800 m depth during the Bolling-Allerod warm period (15-13 kyr) was greatly reduced. Existing oxygen isotopic records of benthic and planktonic foraminifera suggest that this was probably due to suppressed ventilation at higher latitudes of the North Pacific. Comparison with ventilation records for the North Atlantic indicates an antiphased pattern of convection relative to the North Pacific over the past 22 kyr, perhaps due to variations in water vapor transport across Central America.