Pleistocene to Holocene paleoceanographic changes in the Mediterranean Sea recorded by benthic foraminifera and their geochemical signature

Abstract

Benthic foraminifera are a powerful proxy in paleoceanographic studies since they are sensitive to oceanographic parameters such as sea level, bottom-water ventilation and organic fluxes (Jorissen et al., 2007). Furthermore, water mass properties including temperature, salinity and nutrient content are recorded in their carbonate shells (Cacho et al., 2006). Consequently, the combination of micropaleontological and geochemical analyses on benthic foraminifera offers great potential to unravel past changes in ocean circulation and their relationship with climate oscillations. Here we present two examples of paleoceanographic reconstructions of Pleistocene to Holocene Mediterranean sediments using micropaleontological proxies: benthic foraminiferal assemblages, microhabitats, and oxygen index; and geochemical proxies: Mg/Ca-deep water temperatures (DWT), Cd/Ca, O and C stable isotopes