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Late Quaternary Terrigenous Sedimentation in the Western Equatorial Atlantic South American versus African Provenance Discriminated by Magnetic Mineral Analysis

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The South Atlantic in the Late Quaternary

Abstract

Magnetic mineral accumulation at the Ceará Rise has been studied with the aim to discriminate and reconstruct fluvial South American and eolian African terrigenous fluxes to the late Quaternary western Equatorial Atlantic. Seven sediment series recovered along two bathymetric transects were investigated with standard environmental magnetic techniques. Climatically controlled fluctuations in continental detrital discharge and marine biogenic carbonate fluxes strongly modulate the susceptibility records. Their coherent precessional and higher-frequent signal components could be used to establish a high-resolution age framework for these sediments. According to a partial susceptibility analysis, on average 79 % of the susceptibility signal originates from magnetite of different grain size, 13 % from hematite and 8 % from paramagnetic matrix compounds. In terms of absolute concentrations this implies that hematite is almost twenty times more abundant than magnetite, because of its orders of magnitude lower intrinsic susceptibility. The longitudinal gradients of their respective accumulation rates document a delivery from two major sources characterized by largely different magnetite to hematite ratios (about 1:12 versus 1:50). A mixing model of this scenario provided detailed insight into the past variability of the separate magnetic mineral fluxes and their most probable provenance. Overall about 56 % of hematite and 84 % of magnetite were transported in the Amazon fluvial load. Their accumulation is closely related to sea level changes, reaching highest (lowest) rates, when most South American shelf areas fell dry (were flooded) before and after Termination I and II. Hematite and magnetite of African provenance, 44 and 16 %, respectively, follow a distinctly different accumulation pattern with prominent maxima during cold intervals of glacial periods. By statistically linking these trace minerals to total lithogenic fluxes, we find that during the last 200 kyr, on average 79 % of total terrigenous material in the Ceará Rise area originates from South American sources in the Amazon River catchment, while African dust sources contributed 21 %.

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  1. Fachbereich Geowissenschaften, Universität Bremen, Postfach 33 04 40, D-28334, Bremen, Germany

    U. Bleil & T. von Dobeneck

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  1. U. Bleil
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  2. T. von Dobeneck
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  1. DFG Research Center Ocean Margins, University of Bremen, Klagenfurter Straße, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Gerold Wefer , Stefan Mulitza  & Volker Ratmeyer ,  & 

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Bleil, U., von Dobeneck, T. (2003). Late Quaternary Terrigenous Sedimentation in the Western Equatorial Atlantic South American versus African Provenance Discriminated by Magnetic Mineral Analysis. In: Wefer, G., Mulitza, S., Ratmeyer, V. (eds) The South Atlantic in the Late Quaternary. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18917-3_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18917-3_11

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