Paleoceanography of the Eastern Equatorial Pacific: Insights from a new Carnegie Platform stratigraphic record

We present new stable isotope and dissolution records for a composite "Carnegie Platform" (CP) sediment record composed of KNR195-5 cores CDH-36 and MC-34A (3° 35.85' S, 83° 57.79' W, 3225 m). Renewed interest in this previously studied Eastern Equatorial Pacific paleoceanographic site prompted a re-coring using the recently developed CDH giant piston coring system. Giant piston core CDH-36, with a core length of 42.61 m, nearly triples the length of previous cores taken at this site. CDH-36 is combined with multicore MC-34A (0.36 m length) to obtain a continuous sediment record through the Holocene into the present day (0 ka). A new age model using radiocarbon dates from both cores and an alignment of the CDH-36 delta 18O record with the LR04 benthic stack (Lisiecki and Raymo, 2005) demonstrates that the CP record extends to 720 ka, to the end of MIS 18. Comparisons of the CP stable isotope records with regional Pacific records show consistencies in timing of glacial and interglacial episodes. We also evaluate the %CF ([coarse fraction/bulk dry sample] * 100) record of the CP core as well as the %fragmentation (100*[(...