0000000000501079
AUTHOR
Frans Jorissen
African monsoon variability during the previous interglacial maximum.
Little is known about centennial- to millennial-scale climate variability during interglacial times, other than the Holocene. We here present high-resolution evidence from anoxic (unbioturbated) sediments in the eastern Mediterranean Sea that demonstrates a sustained V800-yr climate disturbance in the monsoonal latitudes during the Eemian interglacial maximum (V125 ka BP). Results imply that before and after this event, the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) penetrated sufficiently beyond the central Saharan watershed (V21n) during the summer monsoon to fuel flooding into the Mediterranean along the wider North African margin, through fossil river/wadi systems that to date have been cons…
Oxygen respiration rates of benthic foraminifera as measured with oxygen microsensors
Abstract Oxygen respiration rates of benthic foraminifera are still badly known, mainly because they are difficult to measure. Oxygen respiration rates of seventeen species of benthic foraminifera were measured using microelectrodes and calculated on the basis of the oxygen fluxes measured in the vicinity of the foraminiferal specimens. The results show a wide range of oxygen respiration rates for the different species (from 0.09 to 5.27 nl cell−1 h−1) and a clear correlation with foraminiferal biovolume showed by the power law relationship: R = 3.98 10−3 BioVol0.88 where the oxygen respiration rate (R) is expressed in nl O2 h−1 and in μm3 biovolume (BioVol) (n = 44, R2 = 0.72, F = 114, p