Project Details
Projekt
Cryosphere and East Asian monsoon variability during the latest Miocene (7-5 Ma)
Applicant
Professor Dr. Wolfgang Kuhnt
Subject Area
Palaeontology
Term
from 2012 to 2015
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 224193684
During the Neogene, Earth slowly transitioned from Greenhouse to Icehouse conditions, culminating with development of extensive Pleistocene ice sheets over the northern high latitudes. The relatively warm late Miocene period potentially offers a close analogue to understand future climate developement. We propose to develop a late Miocene (7-5 Ma) astronomically-calibrated benthic isotope stratigraphy in a sedimentary splice constructed from carbonate-rich successions drilled at ODP Site 1146 in the South China Sea. High-resolution planktic stable isotopes will be measured in the same samples to contrast the temporal evolution of surface and bottom water masses in the subtropical West Pacific and to evaluate potential repercussions of the Messinian „salinity crisis“ (5.96 – 5.33 Ma) on the Southeast Asian monsoon. Our isotopic records will also provide important information about the pace and magnitude of climate change and main forcing mechanisms during a warmer interval of Earth’s history. Our work will be integrated with published isotope data from ODP Site 1146 to generate a methodology-consistent chronological reference for the last 16 million years. Analysis of this continuous and coherent climate archive in a single core will provide constraints on the development of Northern and Southern Hemisphere ice sheets, subtropical monsoonal climate and major re-organizations in inter-ocean circulation, and will thus contribute to our understanding of climate-ocean dynamics.
DFG Programme
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