Sediment flux and recent paleoclimate in Jordan Basin, Gulf of Maine

Abstract

We report planktonic foraminiferal fluxes (accumulation rates) and oxygen isotopes (δ18O) from a nine-month sediment trap deployment, and δ18O from three sediment cores in Jordan Basin, Gulf of Maine. The sediment trap was deployed at 150 m, about halfway to the basin floor, and samples were collected every three weeks between August 2010 and May 2011. The planktonic foraminiferal fauna in the trap is dominated by Neogloboquadrina incompta that reached a maximum flux in the second half of October. Oxygen isotope ratios on that species indicate that on average during the collecting period it lived in the surface mixed layer, when compared to predicted values based on data from a nearby hydrographic buoy from the same period. New large diameter piston cores from Jordan Basin are 25 and 28 m long. Marine hemipelagic sediments are 25 m thick, and the sharp contact with underlying red deglacial sediments is bracketed by two radiocarbon dates on bivalves that indicate ice-free conditions began 16,900 calibrated years ago. Radiocarbon dating of foraminifera indicates that the basin floor sediments (270-290 m) accumulated at >3 m/kyr during the Holocene, whereas rates were about one tenth that on the basin slope (230 m). In principle, Jordan Basin sediments have the potential to provide time series with interannual resolution. Our results indicate the Holocene is marked by ~2°C variability in SST, and the coldest events of the 20th century, during the mid 1960s and mid 1920s, appear to be recorded in the uppermost 50 cm of the seafloor.