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About OAII |
Paul A. Baker
Duke University
Start Date: May 15, 1994
Expires: April 30, 1996 (Estimated)
Expected Total Amt.: $64,847 (Estimated)
Fld Science: Environmental NEC
Fld Applictn: Oceanography
Abstract:
Baker Research supported by this grant is under the auspices of the Arctic Systems Science (ARCSS) Global Change Research Program and is jointly sponsored by the Division of Ocean Sciences and the Office of Polar Programs. The research will be centered around a unique and intensive, multidisciplinary research expedition to parts of the Arctic Ocean that have never been extensively studied. The 1994 U.S./Canada Arctic Ocean Section is a collaborative effort with Canada that will involve approximately 60 scientists on a Canadian and a U.S. icebreaker during summer 1994. NSF-funded projects will focus on hydrography, biology, paleo-, and sea-ice studies. Data collected will be amongst the first ever from several regions of the Arctic Ocean and will be highly relevant to improving our understanding of how the Arctic is an indicator of changing global climate conditions and how it affects the physical, chemical, and biological features of the more temperate oceans and regions. This work is a component of the collaborative paleooceanographic program. A climatic history of the Arctic Basin will be reconstructed by measuring the distribution within the sediments and certain chemical characteristics of the exoskeleton of an abundant zooplankton animal. Ostracodes secrete shells rapidly, thereby recording instantaneous physical and chemical properties of the surrounding water. This combined with frequent molts, definable magnesium-calcite compositions, and sensitive analytical methods make them a prime candidate for recording paleoceanography in cored sediments. Ostracode valves from sediments in piston and box cores will be separated by washing over a sieve, identified, and subjected to elemental and stable isotopic analysis. Calcium will be measured using flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry while strontium and magnesium will be quantified by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Approximately 1,000 such measurements will be made in an effort to reconstruct deep Arctic Ocean paleocirculation and bottom water paleotemperatures, and to relate these factors to paleoproductivity, dissolved oxygen, sea ice coverage, and other parameters of the period from the last glacial maximum to the present.