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Influence of brine formation on Arctic Ocean circulation over the past 15 million years

Nature Geoscience volume 1, pages 68–72 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The early oceanographic history of the Arctic Ocean is important in regulating, and responding to, climatic changes. However, constraints on its oceanographic history preceding the Quaternary (the past 1.8 Myr) have become available only recently, because of the difficulties associated with obtaining continuous sediment records in such a hostile setting. Here, we use the neodymium isotope compositions of two sediment cores recovered near the North Pole to reconstruct over the past ∼15 Myr the sources contributing to Arctic Intermediate Water, a water mass found today at depths of 200 to 1,500 m. We interpret high neodymium ratios for the period between 15 and 2 Myr ago, and for the glacial periods thereafter, as indicative of weathering input from the Siberian Putoranan basalts into the Arctic Ocean. Arctic Intermediate Water was then derived from brine formation in the Eurasian shelf regions, with only a limited contribution of intermediate water from the North Atlantic. In contrast, the modern circulation pattern, with relatively high contributions of North Atlantic Intermediate Water and negligible input from brine formation, exhibits low neodymium isotope ratios and is typical for the interglacial periods of the past 2 Myr. We suggest that changes in climatic conditions and the tectonic setting were responsible for switches between these two modes.

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Figure 1: Schematic map of the high northern latitude seas, ocean circulation and glacial ice sheet distributions.
Figure 2: Arctic Intermediate Water evolution from the Middle Miocene to the present.
Figure 3: Late Quaternary evolution of AIW.

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Acknowledgements

The ACEX sediments were acquired through joint efforts of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD) and the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat. We thank IODP Leg 302 members, in particular K. Moran and J. Backman. We also thank J. Heinze and A. Kolevica for support in the laboratory, J. Fietzke and F. Hauff for their help in running the mass spectrometers and D. Bauch and J. Zachos for helpful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IFM-GEOMAR, Leibniz Institute for Marine Sciences, Wischhofstrasse 1-3, 24148 Kiel, Germany

    Brian A. Haley, Martin Frank, Robert F. Spielhagen & Anton Eisenhauer

  2. Academy of Sciences, Humanities and Literature, 55131 Mainz, Germany

    Robert F. Spielhagen

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  1. Brian A. Haley
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Contributions

Samples given to M.F. (ACEX core) and taken by R.F.S. (PS2185) were analysed by B.A.H. at the mass spectrometry facility of IFM-GEOMAR run by A.E. All authors contributed equally to the discussion and interpretation of the results.

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Correspondence to Brian A. Haley.

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Supplementary information: table of samples (PDF 205 kb)

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Haley, B., Frank, M., Spielhagen, R. et al. Influence of brine formation on Arctic Ocean circulation over the past 15 million years. Nature Geosci 1, 68–72 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo.2007.5

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