Why does the Northwest Pacific Ocean (Kamchatka Margin) have a different carbonate time series than the rest of the Pacific? Regional carbonate production is greater than deep Pacific dissolution at the start of interglacials
Abstract. Pleistocene records of sedimentary carbonate from most of the Pacific Ocean have a strong 100-ky cyclicity, attributed for the most part to glacial-interglacial variation in carbonate dissolution. Pleistocene glacial intervals throughout the Pacific Ocean have high CaCO3 burial and preservation and accelerated dissolution in interglacial intervals. Records from the equatorial Pacific, Ontong Java Plateau, Shatsky Rise, and along the California continental margin all have this pattern, attributed to changes in corrosiveness of deep waters in the Pleistocene. Surprisingly, CaCO3 records from the far NW Pacific near Kamchatka (ODP Site 882 and cores nearby) have high CaCO3 during early interglacial intervals and no CaCO3 in the glacials, opposite to the rest of the Pacific. We synthesise evidence to suggest that sea ice and/or low salinity surface waters over Site 882 impairs glacial carbonate production sufficiently so that no CaCO3 is buried during glacial intervals. CaCO3 is found in sediments at the beginnings of interglacial intervals, likely because of changes in surface CaCO3 production as oceans reorganize and the Bering Strait opens to shunt sea ice and low salinity water north into the Arctic. The deposition of CaCO3, consistently associated with interglacial intervals at Site 882, implies that glacial sea ice and the associated low salinity surface layer was a factor affecting NW Pacific carbonate deposition during glacial-interglacial transitions throughout the Pleistocene.