Geological Society of America

T174 Foraminiferal Signals of Major Events in Mesozoic–Cenozoic Earth History

Tuesday, 12 October 2021
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Portland Ballroom 254 (Hybrid Room)

EXTRACTING TEMPERATURES FROM FORAMINIFERAL δ18O: MODEL-DATA APPROACHES AND A NEW ONLINE TOOL

Paper number: T174-4
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 2:05 PM – 2:20 PM

Authors

Daniel Gaskell Presenting Author
Yale University, New Haven, CT
Pincelli Hull
Yale University, New Haven, CT

Abstract

Oxygen isotope measurements (δ¹⁸O) from the shells of foraminifera are one of the most data-dense and high-resolution proxy archives for reconstructing marine temperatures and climate transitions, but their interpretation has historically been complicated by diagenetic overprinting and uncertainties surrounding the δ¹⁸O of the seawater in which the shells grew. Seawater δ¹⁸O is both spatially and temporally variable and is strongly influenced by both global ice volume and local climate-dependent hydrology. We review recent advances in oxygen-isotope temperature reconstructions and demonstrate how coupling δ¹⁸O measurements to isotope-enabled general climate models (GCMs) can yield coherent δ¹⁸O-based sea-surface temperatures which are consistent with other temperature proxies, even in traditionally difficult cases such as the Early Eocene. We present a new online tool that automates both traditional and novel δ¹⁸O-temperature conversion methods.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 53, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2021AM-366468

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