Foraminifer and Ostracod Occurrence in a Cool-Water Carbonate Factory of the Cape Adare (Ross Sea, Antarctica): A Key Lecture for the Climatic and Oceanographic Variations in the Last 30,000 Years

Abstract

Foraminifers and ostracods were studied in a gravity-core recovered near Cape Adare (Ross Sea, Antarctica) with the aim of identifying the climatic and oceanographic variations during the last 30 ka. The sedimentary sequence represents conditions of a cool-water carbonate factory, which evidences that during the Marine Isotope Stage 2 (MIS2) the area was ice-free and very productive. The overall preservation of delicate skeletal remains such as bryozoans and molluscs indicated moderate bottom currents. This carbonate factory was interrupted by some terrigenous levels, representing conditions of instability/retreat of the ice shelves southward. The younger levels were referred to the meltwater pulse (MWP)-1A and 1B events. The Holocene sequence comprised more terrigenous sediments, reflecting high bottom-currents similar to the present-day conditions. Very abundant and well preserved foraminifers and ostracods, representative of shelf-upper slope paleoenvironments, were recovered. Epistominella exigua, among the foraminifers, suggested the influence of the Circumpolar Deep Water during some periods of the late Quaternary. Heavy-test taxa, such as Cibicides refulgens, indicated strengthening bottom hydrodynamics. As for the ostracods, peaks in the presence of Australicythere devexa, Bairdoppilata simplex and Pseudocythere aff. caudata together with significant values of Polycope spp. allowed us to identify environments rich in nutrients with the influence of cold and deep water upwelling phenomena.