TY - JOUR
T1 - Magnesium in subaqueous speleothems as a potential palaeotemperature proxy
AU - Drysdale, Russell
AU - Couchoud, Isabelle
AU - Zanchetta, Giovanni
AU - Isola, Ilaria
AU - Regattieri, Eleonora
AU - Hellstrom, John
AU - Govin, Aline
AU - Tzedakis, Polychronis C.
AU - Ireland, Trevor
AU - Corrick, Ellen
AU - Greig, Alan
AU - Wong, Henri
AU - Piccini, Leonardo
AU - Holden, Peter
AU - Woodhead, Jon
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful to the Gruppo Speleologico Lucchese for their assistance with the recovery of the CD3-1 drill core. This study was funded by Australian Research Council Discovery Project grants DP0773700 (to R.D., J.H. and G.Z.), DP110102185 (to R.D., J.W., J.H. and G.Z.) and DP160102969 (to R.D., J.W., G.Z., E.R. and P.T.). I.C. was the beneficiary of a research associate position funded under Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP0773700.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/10/6
Y1 - 2020/10/6
N2 - Few palaeoclimate archives beyond the polar regions preserve continuous and datable palaeotemperature proxy time series over multiple glacial-interglacial cycles. This hampers efforts to develop a more coherent picture of global patterns of past temperatures. Here we show that Mg concentrations in a subaqueous speleothem from an Italian cave track regional sea-surface temperatures over the last 350,000 years. The Mg shows higher values during warm climate intervals and converse patterns during cold climate stages. In contrast to previous studies, this implicates temperature, not rainfall, as the principal driver of Mg variability. The depositional setting of the speleothem gives rise to Mg partition coefficients that are more temperature dependent than other calcites, enabling the effect of temperature change on Mg partitioning to greatly exceed the effects of changes in source-water Mg/Ca. Subaqueous speleothems from similar deep-cave environments should be capable of providing palaeotemperature information over multiple glacial-interglacial cycles.
AB - Few palaeoclimate archives beyond the polar regions preserve continuous and datable palaeotemperature proxy time series over multiple glacial-interglacial cycles. This hampers efforts to develop a more coherent picture of global patterns of past temperatures. Here we show that Mg concentrations in a subaqueous speleothem from an Italian cave track regional sea-surface temperatures over the last 350,000 years. The Mg shows higher values during warm climate intervals and converse patterns during cold climate stages. In contrast to previous studies, this implicates temperature, not rainfall, as the principal driver of Mg variability. The depositional setting of the speleothem gives rise to Mg partition coefficients that are more temperature dependent than other calcites, enabling the effect of temperature change on Mg partitioning to greatly exceed the effects of changes in source-water Mg/Ca. Subaqueous speleothems from similar deep-cave environments should be capable of providing palaeotemperature information over multiple glacial-interglacial cycles.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85092041537
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-020-18083-7
DO - 10.1038/s41467-020-18083-7
M3 - Article
C2 - 33024094
AN - SCOPUS:85092041537
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 11
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 5027
ER -