Reconstruction of the Amazon Basin Effective Moisture Availability over the Past 14,000 Years

Quantifying the moisture history of the Amazon Basin is essential for understanding the cause of rain forest diversity and its potential as a methane source. We reconstructed the Amazon River outflow history for the past 14,000 years to provide a moisture budget for the river drainage basin. The oxy...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
Main Authors: Maslin, Mark A., Burns, Stephen J.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2000
Subjects:
Planktonic foraminifera
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.290.5500.2285
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.290.5500.2285
Description
Summary:Quantifying the moisture history of the Amazon Basin is essential for understanding the cause of rain forest diversity and its potential as a methane source. We reconstructed the Amazon River outflow history for the past 14,000 years to provide a moisture budget for the river drainage basin. The oxygen isotopic composition of planktonic foraminifera recovered from a marine sediment core in a region of Amazon River discharge shows that the Amazon Basin was extremely dry during the Younger Dryas, with the discharge reduced by at least 40% as compared with that of today. After the Younger Dryas, a meltwater-driven discharge event was followed by a steady increase in the Amazon Basin effective moisture throughout the Holocene.

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