Marine Isotope Stage 5e diatom assemblages in marine sediment core ELT17-9 (-63.08 degN, -135.12 degE, Cruise ELT17)

• Main Authors: Chadwick, Matthew, Allen, Claire
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: UK Polar Data Centre, Natural Environment Research Council, UK Research & Innovation 2021
• Subjects: "EARTH SCIENCE","BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION","PROTISTS","DIATOMS"; Diatoms; Interglacial; Sediment core; Southern Ocean; Olympus; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5285/05db2c67-99f0-4556-86bf-58b0e84f4cd7; https://data.bas.ac.uk/full-record.php?id=GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01446

This dataset presents the relative diatom abundances of 55 species/groups from the 132-120 ka interval in marine sediment core ELT17-9 (-63.08degN, -135.12 degE). This age interval corresponds to the peak of Marine Isotope Stage 5e (130-116 ka). Microscope slides were prepared using a method adapted from Scherer (1994) and 300+ diatom valves were counted for each depth sample to produce the relative percentage abundance of each diatom species/group. This project was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council Grant NE/L002531/1 : Sediment core material was collected on Cruise ELT17-9 (1965) of the R/V Eltanin (https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geosamples/showsample.jsp?imlgs=imlgs0002061). For the diatom assemblage data, microscope slides were produced using a method adapted from Scherer (1994). Samples of 7-20 mg were exposed to 10% Hydrochloric acid to remove any carbonate, 30% Hydrogen peroxide to break down organic material and a 4% Sodium Hexametaphosphate solution to promote disaggregation and placed in warm water bath for minimum 12 hours. The material was homogenised into a ~10cm water column and allowed to settle randomly onto coverslips over a minimum of 4 hours. The water was drained away and coverslips were mounted on microscope slides with Norland Optical Adhesive (NOA 61). Slides were investigated with a light microscope (Olympus BH-2 at x1000 magnification) and a minimum of 300 diatom valves were counted for each sample. Age Model Chase et al. (2003) align core ELT17-9 to the SPECMAP chronology by correlating the abundances of the radiolarian species Cycladophora davisiana (Hays J. unpublished data) and the diatom species Eucampia antarctica (Burckle L.H. unpublished data) in the sediment core with reference abundance stratigraphies (Burckle & Burak 1995, Brathauer et al. 2001). Translation onto the EDC3 and LR04 chronologies use the conversion tables in Lisiecki & Raymo (2005) and Parrenin et al. (2013). : Instrumentation; Piston corer, Diatom settling tanks and bench, Olympus BH-2 light microscope. : All diatom abundance values have an error of ±0.16 %. Ages for samples have a chronological uncertainty of ~2 ka. Sediment samples have a depth resolution of 5 cm and age resolution of 1.2-1.3 ka.