Environmental and biological factors influencing trace elemental and microstructural properties of Arctica islandica shells

Long-term and high-resolution environmental proxy data are crucial to contextualize current climate change. The extremely long-lived bivalve, Arctica islandica, , is one of the most widely used paleoclimate archives of the northern Atlantic because of its fine temporal resolution. However, the interpretation of environmental histories from microstructures and elemental impurities of A. islandica, shells is still a challenge. Vital effects (metabolic rate, ontogenetic age, and growth rate) can modify the way in which physiochemical changes of the ambient environment are recorded by the shells. To quantify the degree to which microstructural properties and element incorporation into A. island…