Cold-water coral carbonate mounds as unique palaeo-archives : the Plio-Pliocene Challanger Mound record (NE Atlantic)

• Main Authors: Thierens, M., Browning, E., Pirlet, H., Loutre, M.F., Dorschel, B., Huvenne, V.A.I., Titschack, J., Colin, Christophe, Foubert, A., Wheeler, A.J.
• Other Authors: School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences Cork (BEES), University College Cork (UCC), Department of Geosciences Massachusetts, University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst), University of Massachusetts System (UMASS)-University of Massachusetts System (UMASS), Renard Centre of Marine Geology, Universiteit Gent = Ghent University (UGENT), Institut d'Astronomie et de Géophysique Georges Lemaître (UCL-ASTR), Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), Southampton Geology & Geophysics, National Oceanography Centre (NOC), Center for Marine Environmental Sciences Bremen (MARUM), Universität Bremen, Senckenberg am Meer, Abteilung für Meeresforschung, Géosciences Paris Sud (GEOPS), Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11 (UP11)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Department of Geosciences Fribourg, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2013
• Subjects: [SDU.STU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences; Porcupine Seabight; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-00836232

International audience Through the interplay of a stabilising cold-water coral framework and a dynamic sedimentary environment, cold-water coral carbonate mounds create distinctive centres of bio-geological accumulation in often complex (continental margin) settings. The IODP Expedition 307 drilling of the Challenger Mound (eastern Porcupine Seabight; NE Atlantic) not only retrieved the first complete developmental history of a coral carbonate mound, it also exposed a unique, Early-Pleistocene sedimentary sequence of exceptional resolution along the mid-latitudinal NE Atlantic margin. In this study, a comprehensive assessment of the Challenger Mound as an archive of Quaternary palaeo-environmental change and long-term coral carbonate mound development is presented. New and existing environmental proxy records, including clay mineralogy, planktonic foraminifer and calcareous nannofossil biostratigraphy and assemblage counts, planktonic foraminifer oxygen isotopes and siliciclastic particle-size, are thereby discussed within a refined chronostratigraphic and climatic context. Overall, the development of the Challenger Mound shows a strong affinity to the Plio-Pleistocene evolution of the Northern Hemisphere climate system, albeit not being completely in phase with it. The two major oceanographic and climatic transitions of the Plio-Pleistocene - the Late Pliocene/Early Pleistocene intensification of continental ice-sheet development and the mid-Pleistocene transition to the more extremely variable and more extensively glaciated late Quaternary - mark two major thresholds in Challenger Mound development: its Late Pliocene (>2.74 Ma) origin and its Middle-Late Pleistocene to recent decline. Distinct surface-water perturbations (i.e. water-mass/polar front migrations, productivity changes, melt-water pulses) are identified throughout the sequence, which can be linked to the intensity and extent of ice development on the nearby British-Irish Isles since the earliest Pleistocene. Glaciation-induced shifts in ...