Geography

It was the first time that insects were sampled in the Late Holocene deposits of the Lena Delta. The insect fauna consists of taiga, aquatic and riparian, meadow, shrub, tundra and others species. There are many thermophilic species in different ecological groups of insects. Our findings suggest that about 3000 yr BP predominantly taiga or forest tundra with some steppe elements existed in closer distance to the Lena Delta head in contrast to today. The climate was warmer than it is now and relatively dry in this region.

The oldest lacustrine sediments of the cores from seven kettle-hole lakes in the Frankfurt Stadium in Mecklen-burg-Vorpommern were deposited during the Alleroed. The dead-ice melted rapidly in the mid-Alleroed. The Laachersee-tephra was found in the lakes east of Lake M?ritz, the Saksunarvatn tephra occurred in two lakes. The sediments are generally non-laminated, varves occurred only in isolated sections of a few of these lakes. Relatively high percentages of pine characterize the pollen profiles during the upper part of the Lateglacial.

All holes drilled during Leg 114 contained ice-rafted debris. Analysis of samples from Hole 699A, Site 701, and Hole 704A yielded a nearly complete history of ice-rafting episodes. The first influx of ice-rafted debris at Site 699, on the northeastern slope of the Northeast Georgia Rise, occurred at a depth of 69.94 m below seafloor (mbsf) in sediments of early Miocene age (23.54 Ma). This material is of the same type as later ice-rafted debris, but represents only a small percentage of the coarse fraction. Significant ice-rafting episodes occurred during Chron 5.

We report the occurrence of ferrobasalts recovered from the Central Indian Ocean Basin crust generated at the Southeast Indian Ridge during a phase of moderate to fast spreading accretion (~110-190 mm/yr, full rate).The rocks are rich in plagioclase, FeO* (13/19 %), and TiO2 (2.27/2.76 %), poor in olivine and MgO (3.44/6.20%), and associated with topographic highs and increased amplitude magnetic anomalies corresponding to chrons A25 and A24.

Primary hydrous and other minerals enriched with incompatible components were found in ocean-floor ultramafic-mafic plutonic rock suites recovered from two contrasting ridge systems, i.e., the East Pacific Rise (Hess Deep, equatorial Pacific), a typical fast-spreading system, and Mid-Cayman Trough, a typical slow-spreading system. They are characteristically associated with chromian spinel, enriched with Cr, one of compatible elements. The hydrous minerals can be formed through interaction between depleted mid-ocean ridge basalts (MORBs) and oceanic peridotite.

A ridge of peridotite was drilled off of the Galicia margin (Hole 637A) during ODP Leg 103. The ridge is located at the approximate boundary between oceanic and continental crust. This setting is of interest because the peridotite may be representative of upwelling upper mantle beneath an incipient ocean basin. The composition of the Galicia margin peridotite is compared with those of other North Atlantic peridotites. Hole 637A ultramafic lithologies include clinopyroxene-rich spinel harzburgite and lherzolite, as well as plagioclase-bearing peridotites.

A high-resolution sea surface temperature and paleoproductivity reconstruction on a sedimentary record collected at 36?S off central-south Chile (GeoB 7165-1, 36?33'S, 73?40'W, 797 m water depth, core length 750 cm) indicates that paleoceanographic conditions changed abruptly between 18 and 17 ka. Comparative analysis of several cores along the Chilean continental margin (30?-41?S) suggests that the onset and the pattern of deglacial warming was not uniform off central-south Chile due to the progressive southward migration of the Southern Westerlies and local variations in upwelling.

The Gaxun Nur Basin in arid China is tectonically influenced by the left-lateral displacements along the Gobi-Altay and Qilian Shan shear zones, resulting in a large pull-apart basin with strong subsidence in the interior. The up to 300 m thick basin fills consist of fluvio-lacustrine fine-grained deposits mainly transported by river discharges from the Tibetan Plateau. They led to a large depositional area of more than 28,000 qkm in size with presently dry terminal lakes at the outer edges.

The terrigenous fraction of sediments recovered from Walvis Ridge, SE Atlantic Ocean, reveals a history of southwestern African climate of the last 300 kyr. End-member modelling of a data set of grain-size distributions (n=428) results in three end members. The two coarsest end members are interpreted as eolian dust, the third end member as hemipelagic mud. The ratio of the two eolian end members reflects the eolian grain size and is attributed to the intensity of the SE trade winds. Trade winds were intensified during glacials compared to interglacials.

Independent proxies were assessed in two Late Quaternary sediment cores from the eastern South Atlantic to compare deep-water changes during the last 400 kyr. Two cores were recovered from beneath North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) at approximately 3 000 m depth. Late Quaternary presence of NADW is indicated by the Cibicidoides wuellerstorfi assemblage on the Walvis Ridge (Core GeoB 1214) and the Bulimina alazanensis assemblage on the Namibian continental slope (Core GeoB 1710).