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Middle Pliocene climatic change in the western Mediterranean from faunal and oxygen isotopic trends

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Abstract

The pelagic sedimentary sequences recovered by the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) from the Mediterranean are important because of their proximity to the classical shallow-water Neogene marine-type sections in Europe and because they may help correlations between the type sections and marine sequences outside the Mediterranean basin. We have studied the middle Pliocene (2.7–3.6 Myr ago) histories of surface-water temperature and oxygen isotopic composition at DSDP Site 132 in the Tyrrhenian Sea and here we compare these with another approach to estimating palaeotemperatures1 based on the transfer function technique2. The record clearly shows a climatic cooling commencing between 3.2 and 3.0 Myr ago. An oxygen isotopic curve derived from the planktonic foraminiferan Globigerinoides ruber significantly correlates with a palaeotemperature record estimated from a transfer function palaeotemperature equation on planktonic foraminiferal data. Transfer functions may therefore be of value in interpreting palaeoclimatic history in sequences at least as old as the middle Pliocene.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island, 02881

    L. D. Keigwin Jr

  2. Department of Geology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, 29208

    R. C. Thunell

Authors
  1. L. D. Keigwin Jr
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  2. R. C. Thunell
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Keigwin, L., Thunell, R. Middle Pliocene climatic change in the western Mediterranean from faunal and oxygen isotopic trends. Nature 282, 294–296 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1038/282294a0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/282294a0

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