Decadal to centennial-scale climate variability during the Holocene and Late Glacial based on long CALYPSO cores off southern and subtropical Chile

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Dierk Hebbeln
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2005 to 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5444676

The southern Chilean continental margin... offers unique opportunities to study SouthernHemisphere paleoenvironmental changes during the Holocene and the late glacial on short,decadal to centennial time-scales. We propose to recover 4 long CALYPSO piston cores froma latitudinal transect between 42 and 50°S and an additional core off subtropical Chile fromthe Bay of Mejillones at 23°S. The southern cores are expected to provide high resolutionrecords of continental climate changes, particularly rainfall variability controlled by thesouthern westerly wind belt. Based on available data from short gravity cores on thecontinental slope between 40 and 44°S, sedimentationsrates should be high enough to recordsubcentennial scale variations. Further south, core locations in or near the Chilean fjords canbe used to reconstruct Holocene and deglacial changes in the extent of the Patagonian icesheet.In addition, we plan to recover a long core from Bay of Mejillones where laminatedsediments are reported from short cores. This subtropical region likely captures climatesignals originating from the Tropical Pacific which will allow to compare high southernlatitude and tropical influences on decadal to centennial-scale climate and ocean variabilityoff Chile

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Persons: Professor Dr. Gerald Haug; Dr. Frank Lamy