Introduction
Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 1063 (33°41´N, 57°37´W) was drilled during ODP Leg 172 at a water depth of 4,584 m (Keigwin et al. Reference Keigwin, Rio and Acton1998) at the Bermuda Rise. The sediment drifts of the Bermuda Rise represent a high-resolution archive of paleoclimatic and paleoceanographic information. Due to sedimentation rates partly exceeding 150 cm/kyr during glacials (Channell et al. Reference Channell, Hodell and Curtis2012) and because the site is bathed by the deepest water masses of the North Atlantic, this region has been intensively studied in particular in terms of reconstructing late Pleistocene deep-water mass geometry and the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (Böhm et al. Reference Böhm, Lippold, Gutjahr, Frank and Blaser2015; Deaney et al. Reference Deaney, Barker and van de Flierdt2017; Gutjahr and Lippold, Reference Gutjahr and Lippold2011; Henry et al. Reference Henry, McManus, Curry, Roberts, Piotrowski and Keigwin2016; Jaume-Seguí et al. Reference Jaume-Seguí, Kim, Pena, Goldstein and Knudson2020; Keigwin and Boyle, Reference Keigwin and Boyle2008; Keigwin and Boyle, Reference Keigwin and Boyle2000; Lippold et al. Reference Lippold, Grützner, Winter, Lahaye, Mangini and Christl2009; Lippold et al. Reference Lippold, Pöppelmeier, Süfke, Gutjahr and Goepfert2019; McManus et al. Reference McManus, Francois, Gherardi, Keigwin and Brown-Leger2004; Roberts et al. Reference Roberts, Piotrowski, McManus and Keigwin2010), while paleoceanographic reconstructions from this core location are repeatedly under discussion given the presence of benthic nepheloid layers (Lerner et al. Reference Lerner, Marchal, Lam, Gardner, Richardson and Mishonov2019) and indications for high levels of bioturbation at this drift deposit site (Çağatay et al. Reference Çağatay, Borowski and Ternois2001).
We carried out 14C measurements from co-existing planktonic and benthic foraminifera covering the time period between 30 and 14 ka before present (BP) to examine radiocarbon surface and bottom reservoir effects and to derive the ventilation age of the deep-water masses in the NW Atlantic since the Marine isotopic Stage 3 (MIS3).
Methods
Sediment samples
The examined 27 samples from ODP Site 1063 (Holes B and D) cover the interval from 2.13 to 14.62 meters of composite depth, which previous age models indicated to encompass the time period across Heinrich Events 2 and 1 (Keigwin et al. Reference Keigwin, Rio and Acton1998, Reference Keigwin, Rio and Acton2005). Prior to sampling, depth correlation between Hole D (22 samples) and Hole B (5 samples) has been refined by aligning high resolution magnetic susceptibility records from both holes (Keigwin et al. Reference Keigwin, Rio and Acton2005), such that the selected samples covered the target interval evenly in age. Due to the high sedimentation rate, where accumulated material predominantly contains clays, silts, and nannofossils, and the water depth close to the regional lysocline, only small amounts of carbonate material were available in each sample and we therefore requested large samples, covering 2-cm core slices for analyses. Foraminifera were extracted from the sediment using standard methods (disintegration of sediment in de-ionized water followed by washing over a 0.063 mm sieve and manual picking from the dry-sieved 0.150 mm residue) at the Department for Geosciences, University of Tübingen. For the analysis of surface water radiocarbon ages, monospecific aliquots of the only sufficiently abundant planktonic foraminifera (Globorotalia inflata) were obtained. Other surface dwellers, such as Globigerinoides ruber or Trilobatus sacculifer, occurred in too low abundance only. For the analysis of deep-water radiocarbon ages, assemblages of mixed benthic species (including epifaunal and infaunal species) were sampled and separated. Sample masses of the planktonic foraminifera were between 4 and 37 mg, while benthic samples always yielded less than 1 mg (Table 1).
AMS
All planktonic foraminifera samples with more than 5 mg were prepared for conventional radiocarbon AMS measurements with solid C targets. The samples were dissolved in 3N HCl under vacuum and dried in a water trap using a dry-ice acetone mixture. The remaining pure CO2 gas is captured with liquid nitrogen and attached to the graphitisation line. Here, the CO2 reacts with H2 to C and H2O at 575°C using an iron catalyst (Alfa Aesar, -325 mesh). The solid C samples were measured at the Klaus Tschira Laboratory for scientific dating (Kromer et al. Reference Kromer, Lindauer, Synal and Wacker2013) against the Oxalic Acid II standard and blank values derived from approximately ∼200 ka old foraminifera from the same marine sediment core. Benthic foraminifera were much less abundant yielding amounts of less than 1 mg CaCO3. Therefore, to determine the radiocarbon content in the scarce benthic species in addition to the contemporaneous planktonic samples, we measured the 14C content of CO2 evolved from the carbonate and directly introduced it to the gas ion source as developed at the AMS lab in Zurich (Wacker et al. Reference Wacker, Lippold, Molnár and Schulz2013a). This method allows analyses using as little as 100–600 μg of carbonate (about 10–60 μg C). A sample of 400 μg carbonate (40 μg C) gives typically a 12C- current of 10–15 μA over 20 minutes and yields a measurement precision of less than 7 ‰ for a modern sample (Wacker et al. Reference Wacker, Fahrni, Hajdas, Molnár, Synal, Szidat and Zhang2013b). All samples were measured against the Oxalic Acid II standard accompanied by measurements of 14C-free ∼200 ka old foraminifera from the same sediment core for blank corrections. Using the gas ion source allows to measure radiocarbon in the CO2 phase and reduces the risk of contamination during sample handling in the conventional AMS method. Nevertheless, measurement errors are generally larger due to the limited sample mass and the reduced ionization probability using the gas ion source compared to the solid target technique. The applicability of the gas ion source has been well addressed in several studies, which compared results of solid targets and the gas ion source of identical carbonate samples (Bard et al. Reference Bard, Tuna, Fagault, Bonvalot, Wacker, Fahrni and Synal2015; Gottschalk et al. Reference Gottschalk, Szidat, Michel, Mazaud and Salazar2018; Molnár et al. Reference Molnár, Mészáros, Janovics, Major and Hubay2021; Wacker et al. Reference Wacker, Lippold, Molnár and Schulz2013a).
Tentative 14 C-independent age model
We refined the available age model for ODP Site 1063 for the examined time period (Böhm et al. Reference Böhm, Lippold, Gutjahr, Frank and Blaser2015; Grützner et al. Reference Grützner, Giosan, Franz, Tiedemann and Cortijo2002) by tuning XRF derived CaCO3 content of the sediment to the δ18O signal of Greenland NGRIP ice core (Andersen et al. Reference Andersen, Azuma, Barnola, Bigler and Biscaye2004). As both records reflect a Daansgard/Oeschger event (DO) like behaviour in their signals with the ice core being well dated in the period of interest by annual layer counting, we use the prominent DO pattern to derive an absolute age for ODP Site 1063. We identified DO events between 40 and 15 ka BP in ODP Site 1063 sediment properties, allowing a millennial-resolution age tuning. For the time interval between 36 and 10 ka we identified 12 tuning points, hence one tuning point per approximately 2200 a (Figure 1, Table 2). We set the tuning points preferentially to the start and end-points of DO-events, and thus mark identical time stamps in both records, on which the tuning is based. Here, we assume, that there is no significant lag in the CaCO3 content of ODP Site 1063 compared to the δ18O signal from NGRIP (Buizert et al. Reference Buizert, Adrian, Ahn, Albert and Alley2015), as fine scale variations (< 200 a) are recorded consistently in both archives. In order to improve our decision in setting the tuning points, we applied a Monte Carlo algorithm (Fohlmeister, Reference Fohlmeister2012), which varies all tuning points within its given uncertainties to maximize the correlation between the ice core data and the elemental composition of the sediment core. Thus, we assume an age error of 0.2 ka for the absolute ages, i.e. the subjectively chosen tie points where optimised by an objective statistical method. The assumed age error of 0.2 ka is accounted for in the resulting radiocarbon reservoir ages (in addition to the 14C analytical uncertainties). Even if the variations in NGRIP δ18O and ODP Site 1063 CaCO3 content did not occur simultaneously, a potential lagging mechanism must have been rather constant and small as the shape of the DO events is maintained during the sedimentation process, potentially resulting only in minor reservoir age offsets. Nonetheless, we note that the alignment of the variations in sedimentary CaCO3 to the δ18O of NGRIP is based on the assignment of wiggles and may therefore represent only one out of other possible age-depth realisations.
Results
We report 27 planktonic and 21 benthic radiocarbon ages and thus 21 benthic-planktonic (B-P) ventilation ages from ODP Site 1063 in the time range between 30 and 14 ka BP (Table 1).
The B-P ages in our study vary from a range between –120 to 5000 14C-years with an average of 1500. The bulk of the data falls within a broad band of values between 330 and 1990 14C-years. The temporal variations within this band might not be subject to fine-scale interpretation given the analytical uncertainties introduced largely by the benthic measurements and the relatively coarse resolution of our 14C samples.
Discussion and conclusions
Deviating from the majority of our data three values stand out with very large (5000 and 3600 14C-years) or very small (–120 14C-years) B-P ages. Both the small negative B-P age around 17.4 ka BP (close to the onset of Heinrich Stadial 1), which would suggest the same water mass origin for the near-surface and the bottom water at this site, and the old B-P ages at 26.1 and 27.4 ka BP (before Heinrich Stadial 2), potentially indicating near-surface and bottom water masses of very different origin, are not reflected by the surrounding B-P ages of our record. We cannot exclude the possibility that such features might have been introduced by bioturbation or transport of allochthonous tests albeit the high sedimentation rate (on average ∼90 cm/ka) suggests this process to have a limited effect throughout the core. In particular, the three observed very high or very low B-P ages are not exclusively associated with high or low sedimentation rates. In support of these more extreme values representing real B-P differences, there is 14C-based evidence for similar fast and strong ventilation changes from various other Atlantic bottom water locations (e.g., data compilation by Rafter et al. Reference Rafter, Gray, Hines, Burke and Costa2022) within the time range between 25 and 15 ka BP.
Based on our tentative 14C-independent age model we calculated the radiocarbon surface reservoir age by comparing the 14C results of the planktonic species with the contemporaneous atmospheric value for the (14C-independent) site-specific chronology. The radiocarbon surface reservoir is a measure for the interaction of old deep-water masses with water at the surface or the intensification of exchange between deep and surface waters. In addition, we calculated the radiocarbon difference between the benthic foraminifera and atmospheric values. The benthic radiocarbon offset gives an information on how long the deep water mass was separated from the atmosphere (Skinner and Bard Reference Skinner and Bard2022). When considering the analytical uncertainties and assuming that our 14C-independent age model is correct, we found that based on our benthic results the radiocarbon reservoir of the bottom water was on average 2400 +/–800 14C-years and varied little throughout the examined time-period. In contrast, derived from the planktonic data we found larger relative differences in the radiocarbon reservoir at the surface (1040 +/–910 14C-years, Table 2, Figure 2). In particular, surface water radiocarbon levels around Heinrich Stadial 2 nearly reach those of the atmosphere, whereas during Heinrich Stadial 1 the surface waters were significantly depleted in 14C. These differences between both prominent Northern Hemisphere cold events require further research (Bauska et al. Reference Bauska, Marcott and Brook2021; Shuttleworth et al. Reference Shuttleworth, Bostock, Chalk, Calvo and Jaccard2021), since deep ocean circulation proxies (e.g. 231Pa/230Th, εNd) indicate similar conditions for both cold events (Gutjahr and Lippold Reference Gutjahr and Lippold2011; Lippold et al. Reference Lippold, Grützner, Winter, Lahaye, Mangini and Christl2009; McManus et al. Reference McManus, Francois, Gherardi, Keigwin and Brown-Leger2004; Roberts et al. Reference Roberts, Piotrowski, McManus and Keigwin2010). Surface water radiocarbon content around Heinrich Stadial 2 indicates a good ventilation and equilibration of surface waters with the atmosphere. This implies a relatively strong stratification of surface waters preventing old, carbon rich bottom waters from upwelling. In contrast to Heinrich Stadial 2, Heinrich Stadial 1 surface waters seem not to have experienced such stratification. The high variability of the B-P ages at ODP Site 1063 and the deviating observations for Heinrich Stadial 2 and 1 are not in agreement with interpretation of other paleocirculation proxies from the Bermuda Rise (Gutjahr and Lippold Reference Gutjahr and Lippold2011; Lippold et al. Reference Lippold, Grützner, Winter, Lahaye, Mangini and Christl2009; McManus et al. Reference McManus, Francois, Gherardi, Keigwin and Brown-Leger2004; Roberts et al. Reference Roberts, Piotrowski, McManus and Keigwin2010) and might be related not purely to oceanographic explanations. It is possible that the planktonic signal may not represent the surface mixed layer, because the analysed planktonic species G. inflata is known to add a significant portion of the shell calcite within the thermocline (van Raden et al. Reference van Raden, Groeneveld, Raitzsch and Kucera2011). However, it is unlikely that the depth habitat of the species changed significantly between the two Heinrich Events (Jonkers et al. Reference Jonkers, Gopalakrishnan, Weßel, Chiessi and Groeneveld2021). Another process potentially capable of influencing the apparent 14C age of a sediment horizon is bioturbation, in particular during times of variability in the abundances of different species. Bioturbational mixing of tests out of abundance maxima into older or younger sediment layers can result in apparent isotopic gradients between different species (Löwemark et al. Reference Löwemark, Konstantinou and Steinke2008). However, the high sedimentation rate at this site and the clear manifestation of DO-cycles in the sedimentary record argue against a crucial role of bioturbation.
Nevertheless, this data set reports high variability in radiocarbon levels during the coldest period of the last glacial cycle. This observation may provide helpful information for future studies on past ventilation changes of the Atlantic Ocean.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the IODP Core Repository in Bremen for providing sample material, Margret Bayer and Hartmut Schulz for support in the lab and Julia Gottschalk for discussions. We thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for funding this study via grants FO809/1-1 and LI1815/4-2.