Themes and Sessions

12a: New Developments in Geochemical Paleoceanographic Proxies
Convenors: Tom Marchitto, Ros Rickaby
Keynote: John Eiler (California Institute of Technology)
Orals: Mon PM
Posters: Mon PM
An increasingly wide array of geochemical proxies are employed to probe past changes in the chemical and physical state of Earth’s oceans. These include isotopic, trace elemental, and organic biomarker indicators that are recorded in various marine archives, and are used to reconstruct such parameters as temperature, salinity, pH, biological productivity, nutrient cycling, circulation patterns, and sea ice cover. We invite contributions that aim to develop new paleoceanographic proxies and to improve the mechanistic understanding of more established ones. This includes paleoceanographic multi-proxy comparisons that provide insights into proxy behavior.
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12b: New Applications of Trace Metals in Siliciclastic Sediments as Proxies for Marine Paleoenvironments
Convenors: Thomas Algeo, Anna Cruse
Keynote: Achim Herrmann (Arizona State U.)
Orals: Mon AM
Posters: Mon PM
Analysis of paleoenvironmental conditions in ancient marine systems has been facilitated by the development of new proxies in recent years. These proxies include elemental concentrations and ratios as well as the isotopic ratios of trace metals such as Mo, U and Re. When applied to siliciclastic systems, these proxies have provided greater insights into redox conditions, hydrographic budgets, circulation patterns, and productivity rates, among other environmental parameters of ancient marine systems. This session is intended to bring together researchers working on the development and application of such proxies.
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12c: The Role of Greenhouse Gases in Phanerozoic Climate Change
Convenors: Rich Pancost, Andy Ridgwell
Keynote: Pagani Mark (Yale Univerisity )
Orals: Tue AM
Posters: Tue PM
Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are crucial to understanding climates of the past. But how well are we doing in unlocking and interpreting these records? Are new technologies and approaches resolving long-standing discrepancies or just creating new ones? Improved quantification of past greenhouse gas concentrations is essential if we are to move beyond ‘high CO₂ = warm’ and critically evaluate the climate sensitivity of models. The goal of our session is to discuss and debate greenhouse gas variations through time. We welcome a broad range of submissions, ranging from analytical advances and new proxies to interpretative and predictive models, from orbital to million year timescales, from leaves to alkenones to foraminifera and beyond. We particularly encourage more speculative submissions that attempt to grapple with the most challenging issues in reconstructing past greenhouse gas forcing, such as the concentrations of methane or nitrous oxide.
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12d: Past Ocean Circulation and Climate
Convenors: Katharina Pahnke, Stephen Barker
Keynotes: Jess Adkins (Caltech) , Jerry McManus (LDEO)
Orals: Tue AM
Posters: Tue PM
Ocean circulation and climatic changes are tightly linked, but the different role and mechanisms of these changes are still largely unknown. Geochemical paleo-proxy records offer a powerful means to gain insight into, and place constraints on the nature, timing, and coupling of ocean/climate variations in the past. The development of new isotope and trace-element proxies and the generation of new paleo-records are constantly expanding our knowledge of past ocean circulation and climate changes, bringing us closer to an improved understanding of the ocean and climate systems and their interactions. We invite contributions that address changes in ocean circulation, ocean processes and climate during the Cenozoic based on proxy data and proxy-model integrations. We are interested in a range of timescales from the long term, tectonic-scale to the millennial-scale variations of the last glacial and deglacial periods.
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12e: Marine-Terrestrial Archives of ‘Deep-Time’ Climate Change
Convenors: Isabel Montanez, Adrian Immenhauser
Keynote: Brad Sageman (Northwestern U.)
Orals: Tue PM
Posters: Tue PM
As our present climate system rapidly departs from the conditions of the well-studied icehouse climates of the past few million years, a ‘deep-time’ perspective of climate forcing-feedbacks and the biological response is a critical component of better understanding our future with continued global warming. The deep-time geologic record uniquely archives magnitudes of warmhouse climate change and planetary response, and fundamental feedbacks of long-term processes that are not well resolved in the Pleistocene/Holocene world. In this session we welcome abstracts that constrain deep-time climatic change using marine and/or terrestrial archives, and which permit evaluation of phasing and causal relationships within the climate system via proxy records or data-model comparison studies.
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12f: Paleo-Sea Level and Paleo-Ice Volume: Reconstructions and Implications
Convenors: eelco rohling, William G. Thompson, Peter Clark
Keynote: Alex Thomas (Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford)
Orals: Tue PM
Posters: Tue PM
This session will bring together a diverse group of scientists focused on global sea-level/ice-volume reconstructions and their implications. The session will address: - state-of-the-art data for sea level and ice volume changes during the Cenozoic - state-of-the-art attribution or fingerprinting studies regarding the origins of ice-volume change - forward projections from past sea level/ice volume data into the greenhouse future
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12g: Abrupt Climate Change and Millennial-Scale Climate Variability
Convenors: Stephen Barker, Laura Robinson
Keynote: Larry Edwards (University of Minnesota)
Orals: Wed AM
Posters: Tue PM
The observation of abrupt climate shifts across the North Atlantic region (and more widely) during the last glacial and deglacial periods, coupled with their more gradual counterparts in the Southern Hemisphere, has provided a major stimulus for paleo-climate research and fuelled debate over the possible nature of future climate change. Recent decades have seen the development of climate records from a variety of high resolution archives including speleothems, ice cores, marine and lake sediments, corals, bogs and trees. In combination these records provide an unparalleled picture of Earth’s dynamic climate system. This session aims to bring together scientists working on a variety of archive materials with the hope of stimulating cross-disciplinary discussion as well as continuing to improve the synthesis of high resolution climate reconstructions. We particularly encourage those studies which can improve our knowledge of the coupled climate system by their synthesis with other records.
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12h: Role of the Southern Ocean in Global Climate Change
Convenors: Laura Robinson, Stephen Barker
Keynote: Sidney Hemming (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia Uni)
Orals: Thu AM
The Southern Ocean (SO) connects the world’s oceans via the Antarctic Circumpolar Current while simultaneously isolating and therefore cooling Antarctica. From the opening of the Drake Passage to the operation of the Atlantic bipolar seesaw, and with the climate changes that have been occurring over the last few decades the SO plays a pivotal role in the development and transmission of global climate change. Much of our understanding of the mechanisms of past climate changes associated with the SO derives from the development and application of geochemical proxies and tracers. As such we invite contributions that offer new insights into the role of SO processes on global climate change at a range of timescales. We envisage a combination of new proxy developments and archives with applications of more traditional approaches to paleoceanographic reconstruction. We also invite studies from outside of the marine realm which shed light on SO processes.
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12i: Biomineralization: Implications for Paleoclimate and Paleoenvironment Reconstructions
Convenors: Alberto Perez-Huerta, Yannicke Dauphin
Keynotes: Patricia M. Dove (Virginia Tech) , C. Terry Williams (Natural History Museum London)
Orals: Thu AM
Posters: Tue PM
Biogeochemistry data obtained from biominerals are essential in studies related to paleoclimate and paleoenvironment reconstructions. Stable isotopes and trace element chemistry of marine, freshwater and terrestrial organisms with biogenic minerals are widely used as proxies, mainly in applications to paleothermometry, paleoproductivity and paleodiet. The study of biomineralization processes has greatly advanced in the last decades providing significant results for the correct use of biogeochemical information. However, this essential knowledge is not widely incorporated in research on paleoclimate and paleoenvironments. The main objective of this session is to discuss the latest advances in biomineralization studies and their implications for paleoclimate research.
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10e: Chemical and Isotopic Perspectives on Global Elemental Cycling in Modern and Ancient Systems
Convenors: Matthew Fantle, Edward Tipper
Keynote: Yves Godderis (CNRS Toulouse)
Orals: Fri AM, Fri PM
Posters: Thu PM
Understanding the controls over the manner and degree to which many elements (such as B, Ca, Cr, Cu, Li, Fe, Mg, Mo, Os, Si, Sr, and Zn) move between the major terrestrial geochemical reservoirs is critical to elucidating the response of the Earth system to climate change and interpreting the past using geochemical proxies over various time scales. This session presents work that identifies and quantifies such controls through geochemical and isotopic measurements and/or numerical modeling. Relevant topics include: submarine ocean crust alteration, terrestrial weathering/pedogenesis, riverine transport, estuarine interactions, biogenic carbonate precipitation and dissolution, marine diagenesis, and atmospheric inputs. Work at local to regional scales is welcome, though we stress our interest in highlighting the relevance of such work within a global context. We are interested in work using numerical models of varying complexities to interpret the past, and welcome those considering novel proxies or reconsidering established proxies.
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20f: Analytical Techniques and Applications for Rhenium (Re) – Osmium (Os) Geochemistry to Sedimentary Systems
Convenors: Guangping Xu, Katsuhiko Suzuki, Aaron Zimmerman, Gang Yang
Keynotes: Robert A. Creaser (University of Alberta) , Gregory E. Ravizza (University of Hawaii)
Orals: Thu AM
Posters: Thu PM
This session targets technique developments and novel applications of Re – Os systems. Topics include (1) developments in analytical techniques and calibrations; (2) contributions applicable to sedimentary environments, such as tracking changes of palaeoclimate, depositional processes and environment, continental weathering and basin water restriction; (3) contributions to the geological timescale, such as dating of organic-rich sedimentary rocks or diagenetic minerals; (4) novel applications in tracing hydrocarbon migration and establishing oil-source correlations
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