Marcio Gurgel

Particle Fluxes and Bulk Geochemical Characterization of the Cabo Frio Upwelling System in Southeastern Brazil: Sediment Trap Experiments between Spring 2010 and Summer 2012

Physical and biogeochemical processes in continental shelves act synergistically in both transporting and transforming suspended material, and ocean dynamics control the dispersion of particles by the coastal zone and their subsequent mixing and dilution within the shelf area constrained by oceanic boundary currents, followed by their gradual settling in a complex sedimentary scenario. One of these regions is the Cabo Frio Upwelling System located in a significantly productive area of Southeastern Brazil, under the control of the nutrient-poor western boundary Brazil Current but also with a wind-driven coastal upwelling zone, inducing cold-water intrusions of South Atlantic Central Water on the shelf. To understand these synergic interactions among physical and biogeochemical processes in the Cabo Frio shelf, a series of four experiments with a total of 98 discrete samples using sediment traps was performed from November 2010 to March 2012, located on the 145 m isobath on the edge of the continental shelf. The results showed that lateral transport might be relevant in some cases, especially in deep layers, although no clear seasonal cycle was detected. Two main physical-geochemical coupling scenarios were identified: singular downwelling events that can enhance particles fluxes and are potentially related to the Brazil Current oscillations; and events of significant fluxes related to the intrusion of the 18°C isotherm in the euphotic zone. The particulate matter settling in the Cabo Frio shelf area seems to belong to multiple marine and terrestrial sources, in which both Paraiba do Sul River and Guanabara Bay could be potential land-sources, although the particulate material might subject intense transformation (diagenesis) during its trajectory to the shelf edge.

South Tropical Atlantic anti-phase response to Holocene Bond Events

Records of the climatic impacts of the North Atlantic Bond cycles over the subtropical Southern Hemisphere re-main scarce, and their mechanism is a topic of active discussion. We present here an alkenone-based reconstruct-ed sea surface temperature (SST) of a sediment core retrieved from the Brazilian Southwestern Tropical Atlantic (SWTA), Rio de Janeiro, together with a sediment SST record from the Cariaco Basin. The sediment cores span the period 2,100 B.P. – 11,100 B.P. Morlet-wavelet analysis detected marked periodic signals of ~ 0.8, ~ 1.7 and ~2.2 kyr, very similar and with comparable phases to the hematite-stained-grain time series from the Northern North Atlantic in which the cyclic pattern was recognized as Bond cycles. Our result corroborates the modeled surface ocean anti-phase thermal relation between the North and the South Atlantic. We attribute this behavior to the slowing of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. The relative SST warming at Rio de Janeiro and the relative cooling at Cariaco were comparatively more pronounced during the early Holocene (from 11 to 5 kyr B.P.) than in more recent time.