German year 2000 activities dedicated to the study of long IMAGES piston cores were performed by research teams from the Marine Geoscience Departments at the GEOMAR, and at the Universities of Bremen and Kiel. They included core studies from the following cruises or areas.
core studies (R. Schneider) At Bremen University stable isotope measurements for three NAUSICAA cores were completed. These isotope records will help to improve the stratigraphy of cores MD962094 from the Walvis Ridge, MD962098 from the Namibian continental margin, and MD962084 to the Northwest off Cape Town. While MD942094 was primarily investigated by dutch colleagues from Amsterdam and Utrecht Universities for changes in grain-size of terrigenous eolian input (Stuut et al. 2001), the latter two cores are still investigated in cooperation with french (Université de Bordeaux) and South African (Cape Town University) teams for paleoenvironmental indicators in order to allow reconstruction of Quaternary changes in Benguela upwelling intensity as well as surface current and deep-water changes along SW-Africa (Bertrand et al. subm.).
In May 1997 German scientists participated on the images III cruise IPHIS from Hobart to Christchurch. Three long sediment cores retrieved during this expedition are studied at GEOMAR, one currently is being studied at Cardiff Univ (R. Zahn).
The analyses for benthic and planktic stable isotopes at Core MD97-2108 are completed in 5 cm intervalls and indicate a maximum age of 1.2 Ma. A manuscript for publication is almost ready for submission (Nees et al., in prep). Those data will be a reference record for the western Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean for stratigraphy and deep-water mass exchange. Additionally, grain size data <63µm will allow to further study water mass variability in a critical water. Cores MD97-2107 and MD97-2109 currently are being processed for stable isotope and grain size analyses. Core MD97-2107 is located at the western flank of the South Tasman Rise and will complement data achieved through the FS SONNE 136 TASQWA project. It is expected that this core will yield an Indian Ocean signal with potentially characteristics of an Atlantic signature. Core MD97-2109 is located on the Champbell Plateau SE of the southern island of New Zealand in shallow water depths. Data from this core are expected to carry signals from frontal shifts and a variability of Antarctic Intermediate Water.
For details on progress concerning Core MD97-2120 please contact Rainer Zahn at: ZahnR@Cardiff.ac.uk.
Further german participation and interest in future IMAGES cruises were expressed by site proposals made for the Timor Sea (W. Kuhnt), the Sea of Ochotsks (R. Tiedemann & D. Nürnberg), the Emperor and Patton Murray Seamounts (M. Sarnthein), the Panama Basin (P. Schäfer), and for the Antarctic continental margin and Gunnerus Ridge (D. Fütterer).
German activities in ongoing and new IMAGES working groups concentrated on the documentation of the outcome of the first EPILOG workshop organised by R. Schneider, A. Mix, and E. Bard in Delmenhorst in May 1999, that was summarized in an review article (Mix et al. 2001) and in the PAGES Newsletter (Schneider 2000).
References
Bertrand, P., Pedersen, T., Schneider, R.R., Shimmield, G., Giraudeau, J., Müller, P.J., Forster, J., Pierre, C., Venec-Peyré, M.-T., Massias, D., and Tribovillard, N., submitted. SE Atlantic records suggest older occurence and a low-latitude control of the the paleocean circulation bipolar seesaw. GRL, (in press).
Mix, A.C., Bard, E., and Schneider, R.R., 2001. Environmental Processes of the Ice age: Land, Ocean, Glaciers (EPILOG). Quat. Sci. Rev. (in press).
Stuut, J-B.W., Prinz, M.A., Schneider, R.R., Weltje, G.J., Jansen, J.H.F, and Postma, G., 2001. A 300 kyr record of aridity and wind strength in southwestern Africa: evidence from grain-size distributions in sediments on Walvis Ridge, SE Atlantic. Mar. Geol., (in press).
Nees S., Tiedemann R., Suhonen J. M. and Reijmer J. J. G. (in prep.): High-Resolution 1.2 Ma Paleoclimate Record from the STasman Rise: Results from images Core MD 97-2108. - to be submitted to Paleoceanography.