Source identification and distribution reveals the potential of the geochemical Antarctic sea ice proxy IPSO25

The presence of a di-unsaturated highly branched isoprenoid (HBI) lipid biomarker (diene II) in Southern Ocean sediments has previously been proposed as a proxy measure of palaeo Antarctic sea ice. Here we show that a source of diene II is the sympagic diatom Berkeleya adeliensis Medlin. Furthermore...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature Communications
Main Authors: Belt, Simon T., Smik, Lukas, Brown, Thomas Adam, Kim, J-H, Rowland, S J, Allen, Claire S., Gal, J-K, Shin, K-H, Lee, J, Taylor, Kyle
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2016
Subjects:
7ref2021
Antarc*
Antarctic
Ice Shelves
Sea ice
Southern Ocean
Online Access:https://pure.uhi.ac.uk/en/publications/86526e08-7640-4b1c-972a-f82bd5aec17b
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12655
https://pureadmin.uhi.ac.uk/ws/files/2435149/Belt_et_al_2016.pdf
Description
Summary:The presence of a di-unsaturated highly branched isoprenoid (HBI) lipid biomarker (diene II) in Southern Ocean sediments has previously been proposed as a proxy measure of palaeo Antarctic sea ice. Here we show that a source of diene II is the sympagic diatom Berkeleya adeliensis Medlin. Furthermore, the propensity for B. adeliensis to flourish in platelet ice is reflected by an offshore downward gradient in diene II concentration in >100 surface sediments from Antarctic coastal and near-coastal environments. Since platelet ice formation is strongly associated with super-cooled freshwater inflow, we further hypothesize that sedimentary diene II provides a potentially sensitive proxy indicator of landfast sea ice influenced by meltwater discharge from nearby glaciers and ice shelves, and re-examination of some previous diene II downcore records supports this hypothesis. The term IPSO25—Ice Proxy for the Southern Ocean with 25 carbon atoms—is proposed as a proxy name for diene II.

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