10:00 AM - 10:15 AM
[U13-05] Sub-surface water mass exchanges around the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean during the last 50,000 years
★Invited Papers
Keywords:Eastern Indian Ocean, Thermocline, Water mass, Indonesian ThroughFlow
Nd isotope results showed that εNd values of bulk benthic foraminifers fluctuated between –9.1 and –5.2, and its variations accord well with the phase and periodicity of the Earth’s axial obliquity. The εNd values indicated that such variations were caused by exchanges of the source of sub-surface water masses between the Pacific and Indian oceans. Since an increased/decreased axial obliquity is known to result in a reduced/enhanced meridional gradient of solar insolation, respectively, our results indicate that such water mass exchanges in the sub-surface layer around the EEIO are caused by changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation (including the ITF) as well as those in thermocline depths in the northwestern Pacific Ocean during the last 50,000 years.