Miocene vegetation dynamics at the New Jersey Atlantic margin

• Applicant: Dr. Ulrich Kotthoff
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2013 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 242361762

The overall goals of this project are the identification and quantification of vegetation and climate changes in the hinterland of the New Jersey shallow shelf for three intervals preceding, (around ~17.8 ma BP), during (around ~15.7 ma BP), and after the Miocene climatic optimum (around ~13.5 ma BP) via high-resolution analyses of pollen records. In addition, marine palynomorph assemblages (particularly dinoflagellate cysts) from identical samples shall be used to identify temperature and salinity changes in the marine realm. The three selected intervals reflect different climatic conditions during the middle Miocene: increasing, high, and rapidly decreasing temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide values. With temporal resolutions of 1 to 3 ka, the identification and detailed analysis of cooling events (e.g., Mi-events) should be possible as well as the detection of orbitally-induced cycles. The main working hypothesis is that the vegetation and regional climate development in the hinterland of the New Jersey Atlantic margin only partly reflected global climate change during the middle Miocene, and that regional peculiarities caused a diluted response to the Miocene climatic optimum. Quantitative precipitation and temperature data for the terrestrial realm will be generated via the application of the nearest-living-relative method to the pollen assemblages, and compared to qualitative estimates of marine conditions based on dinoflagellate cysts and additional marine proxies. This approach will allow detecting phases of decoupling of terrestrial and marine signals. The results will furthermore be compared with local and global tectonic events and sea level- and climate changes using the robust age models established in the framework of IODP Expedition 313. The New Jersey shallow shelf is well-suited for this kind of examination due to high sedimentation rates, guaranteeing high temporal resolution and good palynomorph preservation, and due to tectonic stability.

• DFG Programme: Infrastructure Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 527: Bereich Infrastruktur - "International Ocean Discovery Program" (IODP)
• International Connection: Belgium, Canada, Netherlands
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Gerhard Schmiedl
• Cooperation Partners: Timme Donders; Professor Dr. David Greenwood; Professorin Dr. Francine McCarthy; Willemijn Quaijtaal