Oceanographic changes in the Indian and Pacific Sectors of the Southern Ocean during the last 250,000 years

The project consists in counting species abundances data of microplankton fossils in approximately 100 samples of a sediment core that was recovered in the near the Del Cano Rise located in the Southern Indian Ocean.

Complex statistical methods, transfer functions, will be applied to this data in order to estimate water temperatures at the core site over the last 250,000 years. Results will be compared to similar data obtained in a sediment core of similar time coverage from the Southern Pacific Ocean. Comparing these results will bring new insights on the timing of climate state transitions in two understudied sectors of the ocean.

With results in two different sectors of the Southern Ocean, it will be possible to identify the impact of climatic variations on oceanography such as the intensity of currents, the water column structure, CO2 exchanges between the ocean surface and the atmosphere, and sea ice interactions.

Faculty Supervisor:

Karen Kohfeld

Student:

Partner:

Kochi University

Discipline:

Earth science

Sector:

Environmental Science and Technology

University:

Simon Fraser University

Program: