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www.clim-past-discuss.net/7/4401/2011/
doi:10.5194/cpd-7-4401-2011
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under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
A 500 kyr record of global sea level oscillations in the Gulf of Lion, Mediterranean Sea: new insights into MIS 3 sea level variability
1CRG Marine Geosciences, Dept. of Stratigraphy, Paleontology and Marine Geosciences, University of Barcelona, Spain
2Pyrenean Institute of Ecology, Spanish Research Council, Zaragoza, Spain
3Dept. of Geology, University of Salamanca, Spain
4IFREMER Laboratoire Environnements Sédimentaires, Plouzané, France
5Dept. of Environmental Chemistry, Spanish Research Council, Barcelona, Spain
6Fugro Engineers B.V, Leidschendam, The Netherlands
7Institut für Geowissenschaften, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Germany
8Université de Perpignan, France
Abstract. Borehole PRGL1-4 drilled in the upper slope of the Gulf of Lion provides an exceptional record to investigate the impact of Late Pleistocene orbitally-driven glacio-eustatic sea level oscillations on the sedimentary outbuilding of a river fed continental margin. High-resolution grain-size and geochemical records supported by oxygen isotope chronostratigraphy allow reinterpreting the last 500 ka upper slope seismostratigraphy of the Gulf of Lion which consists of five main sequences stacked during the sea level lowering phases of the last five glacial-interglacial 100-kyr cycles. The high sensitivity to sea level oscillations of the grain-size record along the borehole, favoured by the large width of the Gulf of Lion continental shelf, demonstrates that sea level driven changes in accommodation space over the shelf are able to cyclically modify the depositional mode of the entire margin. PRGL1-4 data also illustrate the imprint of sea level oscillations at millennial scale, as shown for Marine Isotopic Stage 3, and provide unambiguous evidence of relative high sea levels at the onset of each Dansgaard-Oeschger Greenland warm interstadial. The PRGL1-4 grain-size record represents the first evidence ever for a one-to-one coupling of millennial-scale sea level oscillations associated with each Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle.
Discussion Paper (PDF, 5946 KB) Interactive Discussion (Closed, 4 Comments) Manuscript under review for CP
Citation: Frigola, J., Canals, M., Cacho, I., Moreno, A., Sierro, F. J., Flores, J. A., Berné, S., Jouet, G., Dennielou, B., Herrera, G., Pasqual, C., Grimalt, J. O., Galavazi, M., and Schneider, R.: A 500 kyr record of global sea level oscillations in the Gulf of Lion, Mediterranean Sea: new insights into MIS 3 sea level variability, Clim. Past Discuss., 7, 4401-4428, doi:10.5194/cpd-7-4401-2011, 2011. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager XML
