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The Significance of Variations in the Strontium Content of Deep Sea Cores
Author(s) -
TUREKIAN KARL K.
Publication year - 1957
Publication title -
limnology and oceanography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 197
eISSN - 1939-5590
pISSN - 0024-3590
DOI - 10.1002/lno.1957.2.4.0309
Subject(s) - strontium , calcium , mineralogy , chemistry , calcium carbonate , geology , organic chemistry
An Atlantic equatorial eupelagic core, Lamont A180‐76, was systematically analyzed for strontium and calcium at 10‐cm intervals down the core. The globigerina contribution to the core was found to contain essentially a constant strontium‐to‐calcium ratio independent of depth in the core. When the globigerina contribution to the strontium and calcium contents of the core are subtracted, a variation in the strontium‐to‐calcium ratio for the fine fraction is observed which is related to the Ericson temperature curve for the core—the high strontium‐to‐calcium ratio corresponding to a time of high surface ocean temperature. It is postulated that this sympathetic variation is best explained as the representation of the relative abundance of celestite tests secreted by an acantharian radiolaria. If the carbonate and lutite sedimentation rates are sensibly constant, then Acantharia productivity is temperature dependent. On the other hand, recent work has shown that the rate of sedimentation in the Atlantic equatorial region during the last glacial period was twice as high as the present rate. Since the strontium‐to‐calcium ratio of the fine fraction is roughly half as great for glacial time relative to recent times, this may be interpreted as the expression of a constant rate of celestite deposition.