Ventilation of the abyssal Southern Ocean during the late Neogene: A new perspective from the subantarctic Pacific

Benthic foraminiferal stable carbon isotope records from the South Atlantic show significant declines toward more “Pacific‐like” values at ∼7 and ∼2.7 Ma, and it has been posited that these shifts may mark steps toward increased CO 2 sequestration in the deep Southern Ocean as climate cooled over the late Neogene. We generated new stable isotope records from abyssal subantarctic Pacific cores MV0502‐4JC and ELT 25‐11. The record from MV0502‐4JC suggests that the Southern Ocean remained well mixed and free of vertical or interbasinal δ 13 C gradients following the late Miocene carbon shift (LMCS). According to the records from MV0502‐4JC and ELT 25‐11, however, cold, low δ 13 C bottom waters developed in the Southern Ocean in the late Pliocene and persisted until ∼1.7 Ma. These new data suggest that while conditions in the abyssal Southern Ocean following the LMCS were comparable to the present day, sequestration of respired CO 2 may have increased in the deepest parts of the Southern Ocean during the late Pliocene, a critical period for the growth and establishment of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets.