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Sedimentary records of nitrogen isotope in the western tropical Pacific linked to the eastern tropical Pacific denitrification during the last deglacial time

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Abstract

The influence of past variations in water column denitrification (WCD) in the eastern tropical Pacific (ETP) on the western tropical Pacific (WTP) remains ambiguous, due to the deficiency of enough down-core records of nitrogen isotope (δ15N) in the WTP. In this study, sedimentary δ15N record down a core from the northern WTP is investigated to revisit this issue. After elucidating the potential presence of multiple forms of N by analyzing bulk parameters and the potential occurrence of alteration by examining amino acids, the bulk sedimentary δ15N can be accepted as an available indicator of nitrate δ15N. Further, a comprehensive comparison of δ15N records in the North Pacific reveals largely similar variations from the last glacial maximum to early Holocene, suggesting a common feature of WCD signals associated with basin-scale processes, likely as a consequence of basin-wide ocean circulations. Our result suggests that the signals of local N2 fixation in the western Pacific marginal seas would have been constrained by a synchronous glacial-interglacial change of the source WCD signals.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the crew of the RV KEXUE for their help during the cruises. Special thanks go to the editors and reviewer for their thoughtful and constructive comments that greatly improved the clarity and quality of the manuscript.

Funding

This work was funded by The Senior User Project of RV KEXUE (No. KEXUE2018G06), the State Key R&D project (No. 2016YFA0601104), K.C. Wong Education Foundation (No. GJTD-2018-13), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41706059 and 41877295), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDA11030103), Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou, China (No. 201707010219), and Science and Technology Basic Resources Investigation Program of China (No. 2017FY201403).

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  1. Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, China

    Xiaowei Zhu, Weihai Xu, Xufeng Zheng, Jianguo Liu, Yuhang Tian, Li Miao & Wen Yan

  2. State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Guodong Jia

  3. Innovation Academy of South China Sea Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, China

    Xiaowei Zhu, Weihai Xu, Xufeng Zheng, Jianguo Liu, Yuhang Tian, Li Miao & Wen Yan

  4. University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100049, China

    Wen Yan

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  1. Xiaowei Zhu
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Zhu, X., Jia, G., Xu, W. et al. Sedimentary records of nitrogen isotope in the western tropical Pacific linked to the eastern tropical Pacific denitrification during the last deglacial time. Geo-Mar Lett 40, 89–99 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00367-020-00637-9

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