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- Isotope Geochemistry
- Research and Projects
- Material flux in(to) the ocean
- Ornithogenic sediments
Ornithogenic sediments
Guano
Ornithogenic sediments built up by seabird-droppings (“guano”) are known from various areas and age sections in the world and are potentially useful but largely unexplored proxy archives for past ocean composition. Long-lasting arid climate favoured the preservation of stratified guano along the North Chilean and Peruvian Pacific coast with an age range from recent to ~2.5 Ma. Results on Nd, Sr, and Pb isotope ratios preserved in recent to fossil ornithogenic sediments indicate a direct reflection of composition of material-input from the lithosphere into the ocean that would allow tracing changing currents and the material delivered through time. The complicated but interesting isotope variability is potentially related to changing water mass movements e.g. mixing of surface water with variable quantities of run-off flux from the Andean magmatic arc in the humid climate zones of southern Chile and northward transport.
Related Publications
Lucassen, F., Pritzkow, W., Rosner, M., Sepúlveda, F., Vásquez, P., Wilke, H., Kasemann, S.A. (2017). The stable isotope composition of nitrogen and carbon and elemental contents in modern and fossil seabird guano from Northern Chile – Marine sources and diagenetic effects. PLoS ONE 12(6): e0179440, doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179440