Elsevier

Quaternary Geochronology

Volume 55, February 2020, 101021
Quaternary Geochronology

Cyclostratigraphic age constraining for Quaternary sediments in the Makarov Basin of the western Arctic Ocean using manganese variability

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quageo.2019.101021Get rights and content

Abstract

The Quaternary paleoenvironmental history of the Arctic Ocean remains uncertain, mainly due to the limited chronological constraints, especially beyond the 14C dating limits of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). The difficulty in establishing reliable chronostratigraphies is mainly attributed to low sedimentation rates and diagenetic sediment changes, resulting in very poor preservation of microfossils and altered paleomagnetic records. In the absence of independent chronostratigraphic data, the age model of Pleistocene sediments from the Arctic Ocean is mainly based on cyclostratigraphy, which relates lithologic changes to climatic variability on orbital time scales. In this study, we used the Mn/Al record measured from the sediment core ARA03B-41GC retrieved from the Makarov Basin in the western Arctic Ocean. The Mn/Al variation was tuned to the global benthic oxygen isotope stack (LR04) curve under different assumptions for computational correlation. Regardless of assumptions, our computational approach led to similar ages of about 600–1,000 ka for the bottom part of the core. These age models were up to about 200 ka older than those derived from lithostratigraphic approaches. Interestingly, our new age models show that the Ca/Al peak, a proxy for a detrital input from the Laurentide Ice Sheet, first occurred about 150 ka earlier than those previously proposed. Therefore, our results suggest that the glaciers in northern North America developed more extensively at about 810 ka than in earlier glacial periods, and influenced the sedimentary and paleoceanographic environments of the Arctic Ocean much earlier than previously thought. In order to establish a more comprehensive age model, more work is needed to validate our findings with different sediment cores recovered from the western Arctic Ocean.

Introduction

Establishing a reliable chronostratigraphy for Arctic Ocean sediments is critical for the reconstruction of high-resolution Quaternary paleoceanographic and cryospheric environments (e.g., Jakobsson et al., 2000; O'Regan et al., 2008; Polyak et al., 2009; Stein et al., 2010a). However, the chronostratigraphic estimates for Arctic sediment records are still highly tentative and difficult to constrain. These difficulties are mainly attributed to very low sedimentation rates in the Arctic Ocean, resulting in various diagenetic imprints on sediments, including a restricted presence of microfossils (e.g., Spielhagen et al., 2004; Polyak et al., 2009). For example, calcareous foraminiferal tests in the Amerasian Basin sediments have occurred during relatively warm periods of the late Quaternary (e.g., Adler et al., 2009; Polyak et al., 2013). The use of paleomagnetic chronology is also questionable, as the nature of variations in magnetic polarity in Arctic sediment records is still not fully understood (Jakobsson et al., 2001; Spielhagen et al., 2004; Channell and Xuan, 2009; Xuan et al., 2012).

The current age models for western Arctic sediments have generally been compiled based on accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C dating in the uppermost strata, cyclic lithologic features associated with glacial-interglacial variations, and bio- and lithostratigraphic marker horizons (e.g., Polyak et al., 2004, 2009; Adler et al., 2009; Stein et al., 2010a; Schreck et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2018). The cyclicity is accentuated by manganese (Mn) enrichment, which caused a distinct brown color in interglacial and major interstadial sediment layers. This is evidently seen at the stratigraphic interval corresponding to the period of “glacial Pleistocene”, when large continental glaciers developed around the Arctic Ocean in the middle to late Quaternary (Polyak et al., 2013; Dipre et al., 2018). However, the identification of climatic cycles beyond the middle Pleistocene (>780 ka) is more difficult, leading to ambiguities in the reconstruction of long-term paleoclimatic environments. Accordingly, age models beyond the middle Pleistocene are still being revised. For example, the age model constrained for Northwind Ridge sediments according to Mn-based cyclostratigraphy (Polyak et al., 2013) has recently been modified by the Sr isotope approach (Dipre et al., 2018).

In this study, we investigate a sediment core with pronounced lithologic cyclicity to constrain the Quaternary chronostratigraphy in the Makarov Basin off the East Siberian margin in the western Arctic Ocean. We apply both visual and computational correlations of the Mn/Al record to the global benthic oxygen isotope stack (LR04; Lisiecki and Raymo, 2005). By comparing different age models, we show that a computational approach can be used to provide a consistent age model under different assumptions over the last ~1000 ka in the western Arctic Ocean.

Section snippets

Study area

The Arctic Ocean is a semi-enclosed ocean surrounded by continents including North America, Eurasia, and Greenland and archipelagos such as Svalbard and Canadian Arctic (Fig. 1). Beyond the broad and shallow shelf areas of the Eurasian Arctic coasts, the deep basins are divided by several ridges, including Lomonosov Ridge in the central Arctic Ocean, the Alpha–Mendeleev Ridge Complex in the western Arctic Ocean, and the Gakkel Ridge in the eastern Arctic Ocean (Fig. 1). In the Amerasian Basin,

Core sampling and measurements

A 4.65 m long sediment core (ARA03B-41GC02; hereafter 41GC) was taken using a gravity corer from the Makarov Basin near the bottom of the Mendeleev Ridge slope (82°19′22″ N, 171°34′17″ E, 2,710 m water depth) during the 2012 Arctic expedition with the research vessel (RV) Araon (Fig. 1). Multiple cores (ARA03B-41MUC) were also collected at the same site for better recovery of surficial sediments. Wet bulk density (WBD) and magnetic susceptibility (MS) were measured onboard the RV Araon at 10 mm

Results

Fig. 2 shows the data generated for core 41GC, including the core surface image, the color reflectance (L* and a*), the ratios of Mn/Al and Ca/Al, the logged physical properties (MS and WBD), and the sand content. Based on the visible description, the (dark) brown layers generally consist of soft, muddy sediments with a sharp upper contact and a mottled lower transitional contact. In contrast, interlaminated gray/beige layers are generally denser and relatively sandy, with intermittently

Discussion

Cyclic Quaternary climate changes, accompanied by the growth/retreat of ice sheets in the higher Northern Hemisphere, strongly affected the sedimentary and paleoceanographic environments of the Arctic Ocean through changes in sediment supply, sea-ice and surface productivity, hydrography, and circulation patterns (e.g., Stein, 2008). These changes are well recorded in glaciomarine sediments of core 41GC. The sediment records show approximately 30 pairs of interlaminating gray and brown layers (

Conclusions

In this study, we investigated a sediment core ARA03B-41GC retrieved from the Makarov Basin in the western Arctic Ocean by analyzing MSCL (WBD and MS), color reflectance (L* and a*), XRF-core scanning (Al, Ca, and Mn counts), and contents of sand and mud fractions. The new age model was constrained by applying a computational approach in addition to a more traditional visual approach using the Mn/Al ratios and the brown layers. The computational matching with the LR04 curve resulted in a

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the captain and crew of RV Araon for their excellent support and colleagues (Y.J. Son and Y.J. Joe) of the KOPRI's Arctic paleoceanography group and Dr. D. Han (Jeju National University) for taking sediment cores during the expedition ARA03B in 2012. We also thank Dr. M. O'Regan and the anonymous reviewer for their great help in improving this paper. This research is funded by the Seed-type Research Program of the Korea Polar Research Institute, Republic of Korea (No.

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