Tracking climate change and human activity in the Amazon basin in magnetic mineralogy of deep-sea sediments

Abstract

During an expedition with RV M.S. Merian exploring the Holocene and Pleistocene climate history of the Amazon River basin, oceanographic data were collected in order to study the changes in ocean circulation on millennial to decadal time scales as well as the Holocene development of the Amazon River delta. Sediments from the continental slope and shelf off northeastern Brazil and French Guiana were sampled with gravity corer and multi-corer. We aim to perform rock magnetic and paleomagnetic analyses on the collected cores in order to study the effects of climatic changes and human activity in the Amazon basin on the magnetic mineralogy of the marine sediments. The expected major outcomes are: 1) rock magnetic characterization of the marine sediments from the Amazon River delta and the Paranaiba basin, 2) study of the magnetotactic bacterial activity in different marine settings, 3) high-resolution paleomagnetic secular variations and relative paleointensity since the Late Pleistocene, and 4) dating of the major climatic and anthropic events in the Amazon basin.