The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Tomas Næraa

Tomas Naeraa

Researcher

Tomas Næraa

Drought recorded by Ba/Ca in coastal benthic foraminifera

Author

  • Inda Brinkmann
  • Christine Barras
  • Tom Jilbert
  • Tomas Næraa
  • K. Mareike Paul
  • Magali Schweizer
  • Helena L. Filipsson

Summary, in English

Increasing occurrences of extreme weather events, such as the 2018 drought over northern Europe, are a concerning issue under global climate change. High-resolution archives of natural hydroclimate proxies, such as rapidly accumulating sediments containing biogenic carbonates, offer the potential to investigate the frequency and mechanisms of such events in the past. Droughts alter the barium (Ba) concentration of near-continent seawater through the reduction in Ba input from terrestrial runoff, which in turn may be recorded as changes in the chemical composition (Ba/Ca) of foraminiferal calcium carbonates accumulating in sediments. However, so far the use of Ba/Ca as a discharge indicator has been restricted to planktonic foraminifera, despite the high relative abundance of benthic species in coastal, shallow-water sites. Moreover, benthic foraminiferal Ba/Ca has mainly been used in open-ocean records as a proxy for paleo-productivity. Here we report on a new geochemical data set measured from living (CTG-labeled) benthic foraminiferal species to investigate the capability of benthic Ba/Ca to record changes in river runoff over a gradient of contrasting hydroclimatic conditions. Individual foraminifera (Bulimina marginata, Nonionellina labradorica) were analyzed by laser-ablation ICP-MS over a seasonal and spatial gradient within Gullmar Fjord, Swedish west coast, during 2018-2019. The results are compared to an extensive meteorological and hydrological data set, as well as sediment and pore-water geochemistry. Benthic foraminiferal Ba/Ca correlates significantly to riverine runoff; however, the signals contain both spatial trends with distance to Ba source and species-specific influences such as micro-habitat preferences. We deduce that shallow-infaunal foraminifera are especially suitable as proxy for terrestrial Ba input and discuss the potential influence of water-column and pore-water Ba cycling. While distance to Ba source, water depth, pore-water geochemistry, and species-specific effects need to be considered in interpreting the data, our results demonstrate confidence in the use of Ba/Ca of benthic foraminifera from near-continent records as a proxy for past riverine discharge and to identify periods of drought.

Department/s

  • Quaternary Sciences
  • Lithosphere and Biosphere Science

Publishing year

2022-05-16

Language

English

Pages

2523-2535

Publication/Series

Biogeosciences

Volume

19

Issue

9

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Copernicus GmbH

Topic

  • Climate Research
  • Geochemistry
  • Oceanography, Hydrology, Water Resources
  • Other Earth and Related Environmental Sciences

Keywords

  • foraminifera, drought, climate, 2018, fjords

Status

Published

Project

  • Tracing past bottom water oxygenation in the sea: a microanalytical approach to improve calcium carbonate based proxies (TOPICaL)
  • Tracing past bottom-water oxygenation in the sea: a microanalytical approach to improve calcium carbonate-based proxies

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1726-4170