Relative abundance and ranges of selected diatoms from Pliocene-Pleistocene sections of ODP Leg 177, Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean

• Main Authors: Zielinski, Ulrich, Gersonde, Rainer
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2003
• Subjects: 177-1089A; 177-1089B; 177-1089C; 177-1089D; 177-1090B; 177-1090D; 177-1090E; 177-1091A; 177-1091B; 177-1091D; 177-1091E; 177-1092A; 177-1092B; 177-1093A; 177-1093D; 177-1094A; 177-1094C; 177-1094D; AWI_Paleo; DRILL; Drilling/drill rig; Joides Resolution; Leg177; Ocean Drilling Program; ODP; Paleoenvironmental Reconstructions from Marine Sediments @ AWI; South Atlantic Ocean; Antarc*; Antarctic; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.678517; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.678517

During Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 177, seven sites were drilled aligned on a transect across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. The primary scientific objective of Leg 177 was the study of the Cenozoic paleoceanographic and paleoclimatic history of the southern high latitudes and its relationship with the Antarctic cryosphere development. Of special emphasis was the recovery of Pliocene–Pleistocene sections, allowing paleoceanographic studies at millennial or higher time resolution, and the establishment of refined biostratigraphic zonations tied to the geomagnetic polarity record and stable isotope records. At most sites, multiple holes were drilled to ensure complete recovery of the section. A description of the recovered sections and the construction of a multihole splice for the establishment of a continuous composite is presented in the Leg 177 Initial Reports volume for each of the sites (Gersonde, Hodell, Blum, et al., 1999). Here we present the relative abundance pattern and the stratigraphic ranges of diatom taxa encountered from shore-based light microscope studies completed on the Pliocene–Pleistocene sequences from six of the drilled sites (Sites 1089–1094). No shore-based diatom studies have been conducted on the Pliocene–Pleistocene sediments obtained at Site 1088, located on the northern crest of the Agulhas Ridge, because of the scattered occurrence and poor preservation of diatoms in these sections (Shipboard Scientific Party, 1999b). The data included in our report present the baseline of a diatom biostratigraphic study of Zielinski and Gersonde (2002), which (1) includes a refinement of the southern high-latitude Pliocene–Pleistocene diatom zonation, in particular for the middle and late Pleistocene, and (2) presents a biostratigraphic framework for the establishment of age models of the recovered sediment sections. Zielinski and Gersonde (2002) correlated the diatom ranges with the geomagnetic polarity record established shipboard (Sites 1090 ...