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U-series age patterns obtained on reef framework-forming cold-water corals collected over a nearly 6000-km-long continental margin sector, extending from off Mauritania (17°N; northwest Africa) to the southwestern Barents Sea (70°N; northeastern Europe), reveal strong climate influences on the geographical distribution and sustained development of these ecosystems. Over the past three glacial-interglacial cycles, framework-forming cold-water corals (Lophelia pertusa and Madrepora oculata) seem to have predominantly populated reefs, canyons, and patches in the temperate East Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. Above 50°N corals colonize reefs in the northern East Atlantic primarily during warm climate periods with the biogeographic limit advancing from ~50°N to ~70°N. We propose that north-south oscillations of the biogeographic limit of reef developments are paced by ice ages and may occur synchronously with north-south displacement of cold nutrient-rich intermediate waters and surface productivity related to changes of the polar front. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Ocean variability at decadal time-scales remains poorly described partly because of the scarcity of high temporal resolution marine records. Here, we present a reconstruction of Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) over the past two millennia at unprecedented temporal resolution (2 to 5 years), from a marine core located off North Iceland. Alkenone paleothermometry was used to infer SST variability, and tephrochronology to build the age model. Spectral analyses of the SST signal indicate intermittent 20–25 year oscillations, with periods of strong and weak power, that are likely reflecting the ocean response to wind forcing, presumably the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Warmer SSTs and paleo-magnetic proxy data, between 1000 and 1350 year A.D., overlapping the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), suggest enhanced heat transport across the Denmark Strait by the North Icelandic Irminger Current (NIIC). This is in contrast with the subsequent period, which includes the Little Ice Age (LIA), showing continuous cooling towards the 20th century. Reduced NIIC flow through the Denmark Strait likely resulting from higher freshwater and sea ice export from the Arctic would account for the observed colder conditions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Studies the early Pleistocene glacial outwash deposits in the eastern San Joaquin Valley, California. Despots in alluvial fans and marginal lakes; Upward-coarsening sequences of silt-sand-gravel; Base of the fan sequence.

This paper presents the first systematic attempt to map the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) configuration of the southern and central parts of the Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet, and to determine the timing of onshore ice-sheet retreat. Geomorphologic evidence shows that the LGM ice sheet expanded to form two ice domes in Palmer Land and merged with an expanded and thicker West Antarctic Ice Sheet in the Weddell Sea. Ice from the Antarctic Peninsula merged with Alexander Island ice in George VI Sound. Cosmogenic 10Be and 26Al data from 29 erratics on nunataks yield model ages between 7.2 ka and older than 1 Ma. The data set contains a high proportion of erratics with evidence of nuclide inheritance. Once these ages have been excluded, the cosmogenic ages suggest that thinning of the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet to near-present configuration was almost complete by the early Holocene. These data, combined with previously published 14C data, exclude the possibility that the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet has been thinning throughout the Holocene, as has been demonstrated for some other sectors of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. On the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula, ice-sheet thinning was under way prior to the early Holocene, but our data do not constrain the ice-sheet behavior more recently than 7.2 ka. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]