INQUA 2015

INQUA 2015, Quaternary Perspectives on Climate Change, Natural Hazards and Civilization
Dates: 27 July – 2 August 2015
Location: Nagoya (Japan)

For further information: http://www.inqua2015.jp

Related session:

Modern calibration of palaeoenvironmental proxies from biogenic carbonate geochemistry
http://convention.jtbcom.co.jp/inqua2015/session/p28.html

Conveners: Amy Prendergast (University of Mainz) and Emma Versteegh (California Institute of Technology).

Geochemical signatures from biogenic carbonates are being increasingly employed as palaeoenvironmental proxies. Some of these proxies (e.g. ostracods, foraminifera) grow in specific seasons allowing the reconstruction of seasonally-weighted environmental records. Others (e.g. corals, mollusc shells, otoliths, faunal teeth) have incremental growth structures, which allow the reconstruction of snapshots of palaeoenvironmental variability at sub-seasonal timescales. These proxies accumulate in geological or archaeological deposits, and can be directly dated using methods such radiocarbon, U-Th series, or amino acid racemisation, providing high resolution, temporally-constrained palaeoenvironmental data. As with any living creature, the life cycles of carbonate-secreting organisms are complex. It is becoming increasingly evident that inter and intra-species differences in growth rates, physiology, and environmental responses can cause variations in the chemical profiles of biogenic carbonates. Therefore, before geochemical analysis is employed for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, it is necessary to examine modern populations of the proxy species, or related taxa, to understand how geochemical variations are influenced by local environmental conditions. This allows any offsets between the environmental signal and the carbonate geochemistry to be identified, and allows the generation of more quantitative records of environmental change. This session invites presentations on proxy development and validation in biogenic carbonates, including work on marine, freshwater and terrestrial organisms, and on traditional as well as novel geochemical proxies and applications.