Climatically driven changes in oceanic processes throughout the equatorial Pacific

Abstract

The mass accumulation rates of sedimentary components (carbonate, organic carbon, opal, barite, reactive phosphate, iron, terrigenous minerals, etc.) are used in many paleoceanographic reconstructions to learn about temporal and spatial changes in surficial Earth processes including wind stress and direction, oceanic circulation, weathering rates, marine productivity and ecosystem structure, climate change, and more. In most studies it is assumed/desired that the sediment accumulation represents the production and deposition of particles from the overlying water column since substantial horizontal transport imply homogenization of paleoceanographic proxies and little confidence in any paleoceanographic time series. In this note we highlight some discrepancies between the different approaches used to reconstruct sediment mass accumulation rates and specifically discuss the consequences of these discrepancies to the reconstruction of paleoproductivity in the equatorial Pacific. We pose research questions and suggest possible approaches/research strategies for the community to solve them. Copyright 2004 by the American Geophysical Union.