NOAA/WDS Paleoclimatology - South Australia Subantarctic Benthic Foraminifera Cd/Ca, Mn/Ca and Carbon Isotope Data

New measurements of Cd/Ca ratios for glacial benthic foraminifera from the continental shelf and slope off Tasmania and South Australia are presented. When combined with glacial carbon isotope measurements [Lynch-Stieglitz et al., 1994], these data from the glacial Subantarctic Zone suggest that a water mass with a high value of the conservative tracer δ13Cas occupied not only the shallow (1–2 km) portions of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans but was present in the glacial Subantarctic as well. The oceanic Cd concentrations, Cdw, predicted for the glacial Subantarctic are intermediate between those from the glacial Atlantic and the glacial Pacific, supporting the idea that Glacial North Atlantic Intermediate Water may have reached the intermediate depth Pacific via the Antarctic Circumpolar Circulation [Lynch-Stieglitz and Fairbanks, 1994].