Title | Tracing time in the ocean: A brief review of chronological constraints (60-8 kyr) on North Atlantic marine event-based stratigraphies |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2012 |
Authors | Austin, WEN, Hibbert, FD |
Journal | Quaternary Science Reviews |
Volume | 36 |
Pagination | 28–37 |
ISSN | 02773791 |
ISBN Number | 0277-3791 |
Keywords | Event-stratigraphy, Marine chronostratigraphy, Radiocarbon, tephra, Tuning |
Abstract | Well-resolved event-based stratigraphies in marine sediments spanning a significant portion of the last glacial period (60-8 kyr) provide a unique opportunity for time-stratigraphic correlation in the North Atlantic region. Here, we review the current methods available to chronologically constrain these event-based stratigraphies, highlighting, in particular, the value of tephrochronology as an independent tool to validate correlations between records. While the INTIMATE protocols (Lowe et al., 2008; Blockley et al., 2011) are equally applicable to marine and terrestrial records, spatially and temporally variable marine radiocarbon reservoir age effects (MREs) provide a challenge to using marine radiocarbon in the former as an independent chronostratigraphic tool. Despite the inherent uncertainties associated with 'tuning', we conclude that the mid-points of the common abrupt warming transitions associated with the well-defined, millennial-scale climate oscillations (the Dansgaard-Oeschger (D/O) cycles) observed in the oxygen isotopes of the Greenland ice cores and North Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) records currently provide the most robust correlation tie-points from which to derive age control. In this invited INTIMATE special issue article we propose a new protocol for establishing marine event-based chronostratigraphies in the North Atlantic region and focus on areas of chronological potential in palaeoceanographic research. ?? 2012 Elsevier Ltd. |
URL | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2012.01.015 |
DOI | 10.1016/j.quascirev.2012.01.015 |