Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Evidence of Stable Foraminifera Biomineralization During the Last Two Climate Cycles in the Tropical Atlantic Ocean

Stergios D. Zarkogiannis
* ORCID logo ,
Assimina Antonarakou
,
Vincent Fernandez
,
P. Graham Mortyn
,
George Kontakiotis
ORCID logo ,
Hara Drinia
,
Mervyn Greaves
ORCID logo
Version 1 : Received: 8 September 2020 / Approved: 10 September 2020 / Online: 10 September 2020 (04:48:27 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Zarkogiannis, S.D.; Antonarakou, A.; Fernandez, V.; Mortyn, P.G.; Kontakiotis, G.; Drinia, H.; Greaves, M. Evidence of Stable Foraminifera Biomineralization during the Last Two Climate Cycles in the Tropical Atlantic Ocean. J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8, 737. Zarkogiannis, S.D.; Antonarakou, A.; Fernandez, V.; Mortyn, P.G.; Kontakiotis, G.; Drinia, H.; Greaves, M. Evidence of Stable Foraminifera Biomineralization during the Last Two Climate Cycles in the Tropical Atlantic Ocean. J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8, 737.

Abstract

Planktonic foraminiferal biomineralization intensity, reflected by their shell calcite mass, affects global carbonate deposition and is known to follow the climate cycles by being increased during glacial stages and decreased during interglacial ones. Here we measure the dissolution state and the mass of the shells of the planktonic foraminifera species Globigerina bulloides from a Tropical Eastern North Atlantic site over the last two glacial-interglacial climatic transitions and we report no major changes in plankton calcite production with the atmospheric pCO2 variations. We attribute this consistency in foraminifera calcification to the climatic and hydrological stability of the tropical regions. We however recorded increased shell masses midway through the penultimate deglaciation (Termination II). In order to elucidate the cause of the increased shell weights we performed δ18O, Mg/Ca and μCT measurements on the same shells from a number of samples surrounding this event. We find that shells of increased mass are internally contaminated by sediment infilling and that shell weights are responding to local hydrographic changes.

Keywords

planktonic foraminifera; shell weight; climate variability; sea surface density; carbonate production; X-ray microscopy (μCT); δ18O and Mg/Ca analyses

Subject

Environmental and Earth Sciences, Paleontology

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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