Imbrie, J., and Kipp, N. G., 1971. A new micropaleontological method
for quantitative paleoclimatology: application to a Late Pleistocene
Caribbean core. In Turekian, K. (ed.), The Late Cenozoic Glacial
Ages. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 71–181.
Kuechler, R. R., Schefuß, E., Beckmann, B., Dupont, L. M., and
Wefer, G., 2013. NW African hydrology and vegetation during
the last glacial cycle reflected in plant-wax-specific hydrogen
and carbon isotopes. Quaternary Science Reviews, 82, 56–67,
doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.10.013.
Lisiecki, L. E., and Raymo, M. E., 2005. A Pliocene-Pleistocene
stack of 57 globally distributed benthic d
18 O records. Paleoceanography, 20, PA1003, doi:10.1029/2004PA001071.
Mann, M. E., Zhan, Z., Rutherford, S., Bradley, R. S., Hughes,
M. K., Shindell, D., Ammann, C., Faluvegl, G., and Ni, F.,
2009. Global signatures and dynamical origins of the Little Ice
Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly. Science, 326,
1256–1260, doi:10.1126/science.1177303.
Mollenhauer, G., Basse, A., Kim, J. H., Sinninghe Damsté, J. S., and
Fischer, G., 2015. A four-year record of – and TEX86-derived
sea surface temperature estimates from sinking particles in the
filamentous upwelling region off Cape Blanc, Mauritania. Deep
Sea Research I, 97, 67–79.
Raymo, M. E., and Mitrovica, J. X., 2012. Collapse of polar ice
sheets during the state 11 interglacial. Nature, 483, 453–456,
doi:10.1038/nature10891.
Röhl, U., Bralower, T. J., Norris, R. D., and Wefer, G., 2000. New
chronology for the late Paleocene thermal maximum and its
environmental implications. Geology, 28(10), 927–930.
Stein, R., Fahl, K., and Müller, J., 2012. Proxy reconstruction of
Arctic Ocean sea ice history – From IRD to IP25.
Polarforschung, 82, 37–71.
Wefer, G., Berger, W. H., Fischer, G., and Bijma, J., 1999. Clues to
ocean history – a brief overview of proxies. In Fischer, G., and
Wefer, G. (eds.), Use of Proxies in Paleoceanography: Examples
from the South Atlantic. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 1–68.
Ziegler, M., Diz, P., Hall, I. R., and Zahn, R., 2013. Millennial-scale
Agulhas Current variability and its implications for salt-leakage
through the Indian–Atlantic Ocean Gateway. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 383, 101–112.
Cross-references
Biogenic Barium
Marine Microfossils
Mg/Ca Paleothermometry
Nitrogen Isotopes in the Sea
Paleoceanography
Paleoproductivity
Radiocarbon: Clock and Tracer
Radiogenic Tracers
PALEOCEANOGRAPHY
Jörn Thiede
Institute of Earth Sciences, Saint Petersburg State
University, St. Petersburg, Russia
AdW Mainz c/o GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany
Synonyms
History of ocean basins; Paleo-Oceanography; Paleooceanography; Paleoceanology
Definition
Paleoceanography is the science of the history of the
world ocean and its subbasins, of their physiography, benthic and planktonic biota, water masses and their properties, circulation patterns of surface, intermediate, and
bottom water masses. Quantitative paleoceanography
can in essence only be done from pelagic and hemipelagic
sediments of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic ocean, basically
from the age of the oldest undisturbed ocean crust to modern times. It is closely linked to the time of collecting
ocean-wide geophysical data (marine seismics, magnetics), of deep-sea drilling and our increasing ability to
collect long sediment cores, providing a global coverage
and long, undisturbed time series of paleoceanographic
data. It is henceforth a young subdiscipline of the marine
geosciences.
Paleoceanography from infancy to maturity
When Schopf (1980, see also Kennett, 1982) wrote the
first textbook about “paleoceanography,” important steps
toward development of this new subdiscipline of marine
geosciences had already been taken, and the term had been
introduced in earlier publications (Van Andel et al., 1975).
During the late 1950s and early 1960s one had learned the
techniques to take long and undisturbed sediment cores
and to drill through/sample ocean sediment sequences, to
date these with great precision, to interpret their contents
of microfossils and their chemical (isotopic) composition
(Emiliani, 1992) for establishing the properties of past
ocean surface and bottom water masses. However, with
his devotion to time spans older than Mesozoic Schopf
(1980) missed one important aspect of modern paleoceanography, namely its importance of climatic and paleoclimatic modeling efforts for our attempts to deduce possible
future climate scenarios from past analogies.
Now, some 40 years later, “Paleoceanography” has
developed into a mature discipline of the marine
geosciences, which is pursued at many universities and
research institutions with great sophistication, as can be
demonstrated by many entries in this Springer Encyclopedia as well as in Gornitz (2009). The examples selected for
this entry concern the Late Mesozoic and Cenozoic
Oceans whose physiographic evolution can be deduced
from the through-time-increasing areas of undisturbed
and undestroyed ocean crust (cf. Müller, this volume).
The salinity of the marine water masses also demonstrates
that we are dealing with a compartment of the environment, like the atmosphere of truly global dimensions
(and contrary to terrestrial, limnic, or ice core data which
record regional or local phenomena). After decades of sediment coring and drilling in most of the ocean basins, the
modern development of powerful research ice breakers
capable to enter the central ice-covered Arctic Ocean
(Fütterer and Shipboard Scientific Party, 1992; Moran
et al., 2006) has opened up the last virtually unexplored
deep-sea basin for paleoceanography. Here an ecclectic
628
PALEOCEANOGRAPHY
for quantitative paleoclimatology: application to a Late Pleistocene
Caribbean core. In Turekian, K. (ed.), The Late Cenozoic Glacial
Ages. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 71–181.
Kuechler, R. R., Schefuß, E., Beckmann, B., Dupont, L. M., and
Wefer, G., 2013. NW African hydrology and vegetation during
the last glacial cycle reflected in plant-wax-specific hydrogen
and carbon isotopes. Quaternary Science Reviews, 82, 56–67,
doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.10.013.
Lisiecki, L. E., and Raymo, M. E., 2005. A Pliocene-Pleistocene
stack of 57 globally distributed benthic d
18 O records. Paleoceanography, 20, PA1003, doi:10.1029/2004PA001071.
Mann, M. E., Zhan, Z., Rutherford, S., Bradley, R. S., Hughes,
M. K., Shindell, D., Ammann, C., Faluvegl, G., and Ni, F.,
2009. Global signatures and dynamical origins of the Little Ice
Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly. Science, 326,
1256–1260, doi:10.1126/science.1177303.
Mollenhauer, G., Basse, A., Kim, J. H., Sinninghe Damsté, J. S., and
Fischer, G., 2015. A four-year record of – and TEX86-derived
sea surface temperature estimates from sinking particles in the
filamentous upwelling region off Cape Blanc, Mauritania. Deep
Sea Research I, 97, 67–79.
Raymo, M. E., and Mitrovica, J. X., 2012. Collapse of polar ice
sheets during the state 11 interglacial. Nature, 483, 453–456,
doi:10.1038/nature10891.
Röhl, U., Bralower, T. J., Norris, R. D., and Wefer, G., 2000. New
chronology for the late Paleocene thermal maximum and its
environmental implications. Geology, 28(10), 927–930.
Stein, R., Fahl, K., and Müller, J., 2012. Proxy reconstruction of
Arctic Ocean sea ice history – From IRD to IP25.
Polarforschung, 82, 37–71.
Wefer, G., Berger, W. H., Fischer, G., and Bijma, J., 1999. Clues to
ocean history – a brief overview of proxies. In Fischer, G., and
Wefer, G. (eds.), Use of Proxies in Paleoceanography: Examples
from the South Atlantic. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 1–68.
Ziegler, M., Diz, P., Hall, I. R., and Zahn, R., 2013. Millennial-scale
Agulhas Current variability and its implications for salt-leakage
through the Indian–Atlantic Ocean Gateway. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 383, 101–112.
Cross-references
Biogenic Barium
Marine Microfossils
Mg/Ca Paleothermometry
Nitrogen Isotopes in the Sea
Paleoceanography
Paleoproductivity
Radiocarbon: Clock and Tracer
Radiogenic Tracers
PALEOCEANOGRAPHY
Jörn Thiede
Institute of Earth Sciences, Saint Petersburg State
University, St. Petersburg, Russia
AdW Mainz c/o GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany
Synonyms
History of ocean basins; Paleo-Oceanography; Paleooceanography; Paleoceanology
Definition
Paleoceanography is the science of the history of the
world ocean and its subbasins, of their physiography, benthic and planktonic biota, water masses and their properties, circulation patterns of surface, intermediate, and
bottom water masses. Quantitative paleoceanography
can in essence only be done from pelagic and hemipelagic
sediments of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic ocean, basically
from the age of the oldest undisturbed ocean crust to modern times. It is closely linked to the time of collecting
ocean-wide geophysical data (marine seismics, magnetics), of deep-sea drilling and our increasing ability to
collect long sediment cores, providing a global coverage
and long, undisturbed time series of paleoceanographic
data. It is henceforth a young subdiscipline of the marine
geosciences.
Paleoceanography from infancy to maturity
When Schopf (1980, see also Kennett, 1982) wrote the
first textbook about “paleoceanography,” important steps
toward development of this new subdiscipline of marine
geosciences had already been taken, and the term had been
introduced in earlier publications (Van Andel et al., 1975).
During the late 1950s and early 1960s one had learned the
techniques to take long and undisturbed sediment cores
and to drill through/sample ocean sediment sequences, to
date these with great precision, to interpret their contents
of microfossils and their chemical (isotopic) composition
(Emiliani, 1992) for establishing the properties of past
ocean surface and bottom water masses. However, with
his devotion to time spans older than Mesozoic Schopf
(1980) missed one important aspect of modern paleoceanography, namely its importance of climatic and paleoclimatic modeling efforts for our attempts to deduce possible
future climate scenarios from past analogies.
Now, some 40 years later, “Paleoceanography” has
developed into a mature discipline of the marine
geosciences, which is pursued at many universities and
research institutions with great sophistication, as can be
demonstrated by many entries in this Springer Encyclopedia as well as in Gornitz (2009). The examples selected for
this entry concern the Late Mesozoic and Cenozoic
Oceans whose physiographic evolution can be deduced
from the through-time-increasing areas of undisturbed
and undestroyed ocean crust (cf. Müller, this volume).
The salinity of the marine water masses also demonstrates
that we are dealing with a compartment of the environment, like the atmosphere of truly global dimensions
(and contrary to terrestrial, limnic, or ice core data which
record regional or local phenomena). After decades of sediment coring and drilling in most of the ocean basins, the
modern development of powerful research ice breakers
capable to enter the central ice-covered Arctic Ocean
(Fütterer and Shipboard Scientific Party, 1992; Moran
et al., 2006) has opened up the last virtually unexplored
deep-sea basin for paleoceanography. Here an ecclectic
628
PALEOCEANOGRAPHY