Influence of seasonal primary productivity on [delta].sup.13C of North Atlantic deep-sea benthic foraminifera

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr.2006.01.006 Byline: B.H. Corliss (a), X. Sun (a), C.W. Brown (b), W.J. Showers (c) Keywords: Benthic; Foraminifera; Deep-sea; Paleoceanography; North Atlantic Abstract: The stable isotopic composition of benthic foraminifera has been widely used to reconstruct deep-ocean circulation, but questions have been raised about the influence of organic carbon flux on the carbon isotopic composition of deep-sea taxa. We show that annual and seasonality of primary productivity in the North Atlantic do not affect [delta].sup.13C of Planulina wuellerstorfi, but that the intermittency or seasonality of primary production has a significant effect (0.9a[degrees] change over 60[degrees] latitude) on [delta].sup.13C of Epistominella exigua, reflecting the influence of pelagic-benthic coupling and microhabitat preferences on test geochemistry. These results support the use of [delta].sup.13C of P. wuellerstorfi in paleocirculation studies and suggest that the [delta].sup.13C of E. exigua can be used to reconstruct seasonality of productivity. Author Affiliation: (a) Division of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University, Box 90227, Durham, NC 27708, USA (b) Office of Research and Applications, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, College Park, MD 20742, USA (c) Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27607, USA Article History: Received 1 July 2005; Revised 21 January 2006; Accepted 27 January 2006