Late Paleocene (PETM) to Miocene Arctic and Antarctic climates from NLR analysis of pollen in sediment cores (mostly IODP).

Representative palynomorphs from the North Sea PETM record (Eldrett et al. 2014).

• Lac de Gras kimberlite field in the NWT (Canada) hosts economically important diamond deposits, but also significant archives of late Paleocene, early Eocene and middle Eocene Arctic environments and biota, including well preserved pollen and leaf fossils.
  • Work on the Giraffe Pipe is led by Alex Wolfe; see Wolfe et al. 2017.
  • There is potential for a student to work on microfossils (pollen + diatoms) from lacustrine facies from a core from the Koala pipe, donated to Brandon University as part of the new Geology core library.
• New Jersey margin Oligocene to Pliocene record (Ulrich Kotthoff at the Univ. of Frankfurt, Francine McCarthy at Brock Univ., and others). Several conference presentations have been made and two papers have been recently published (Kotthoff et al. 2014; Prader et al. 2017), with another in review (Prader et al.).
• Greenland / Nordic Seas Eocene to Oligocene record (with James Eldrett, Shell Exploration, and others); published in Nature (Eldrett et al. 2009). Additional work, focused on the PETM, was published April 2014 (with James Eldrett as well as Appy Sluijs at Utrecht, and others) in the open access online journal Climate of the Past.
  • Current work is with T. Reichgelt and Eldrett to analyze the ODP 908 core from Fram Strait, that covers the Oligocene.
• ACEX Core (Lomonosov Ridge) Arctic Eocene record (Judith Barke & Henk Brinkhuis et al., University of Utrecht, and others). A paper on this topic appeared in the journal Geology in 2011 (Barke et al. 2011), and a further paper focused on the PETM is in preparation (November 2017).
• Wilkes Land, Antarctica. Project led by Jörg Pross (Paleoenvironmental Dynamics Group, Institute of Geosciences, Goethe University Frankfurt). A paper reconstructing climate and forest types on Antarctica during the a shift from very warm early Eocene climates to cooler climates later in the Eocene was published in Nature (Pross et al. 2012).
  • Further work focused on the southern Australian PETM record, led by Jörg Pross (University of Heidelberg), was recently started (May 2018).

Relevant recent publications (* = postdoc, graduate student or comparable HQP):

1. Prader* S, Kotthoff U, McCarthy FMG, Schmiedl G, Donders TH, Greenwood DR. 2017. Vegetation and climate development of the New Jersey hinterland during the late Middle Miocene (IODP Expedition 313 Site M0027). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 485: 854–868, doi: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2017.07.028
2. Wolfe AP, Reyes AV, Royer DL, Greenwood DR, Doria G, Gagen MH, Siver PA,, Westgate JA. 2017. Middle Eocene CO₂ and climate reconstructed from the sediment fill of a subarctic kimberlite maar. Geology, 45(7): 619 – 622, doi:10.1130/G39002.1 Open Access Gold. [URL]
3. Kotthoff U, Greenwood DR, McCarthy FMG, Müller-Navarra K, Prader* S, Hesselbo SP. 2014. Late Eocene to middle Miocene (33 to 13 million years ago) vegetation and climate development on the North American Atlantic Coastal Plain (IODP Expedition 313, Site M0027). Climate of the Past, 10: 1523 – 1539,  doi:10.5194/cp-10-1523-2014 Open Access. (NB: amended from and replaces earlier draft in Clim. Past. Discussions in 2013).
4. Eldrett JS, Greenwood DR, Polling M, Brinkhuis H, Sluijs A. 2014. A seasonality trigger for carbon injection at the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum. Climate of the Past, 10: 759 – 769, doi:10.5194/cp-10-759-2014. OA (NB: amended from and replaces earlier draft in Clim. Past. Discussions in 2013)
5. Kotthoff U, Greenwood DR, McCarthy FMG, Müller-Navarra K, Hesselbo SP. 2013. Vegetation and climate development on the North American Atlantic Coastal Plain from 33 to 13 million years ago (IODP Expedition 313). Climate of the Past Discussions, 9: 6551 – 6603. doi:10.5194/cpd-9-6551-2013 (remains in review for Clim. Past) OA
6. Eldrett JS, Greenwood DR, Polling M, Brinkhuis H, Sluijs A. 2013. A seasonality trigger for carbon injection at the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum. Climate of the Past Discussions, 9: 5837 –5854. doi:10.5194/cpd-9-5837-2013 OA (now published in Clim. Past)
7. Pross J, Contreras* L, Bijl PK, Greenwood DR, Bohaty SM, Schouten S, Bendle JA, Röhl U, Tauxe L, Raine JI, Huck CE, van de Flierdt T, Jamieson SSR, Stickley CE, van de Schootbrugge B, Escutia C, Brinkhuis H, and IODP Expedition 318 Scientists. 2012. Persistent near-tropical warmth on the Antarctic continent during the early Eocene epoch. Nature, 488: 73 – 77. doi:10.1038/nature11300
8. Barke* J, Abels HA, Sangiorgi F, Greenwood DR, Sweet AR, Donders T, Reichart GJ, Lotter AF, and Brinkhuis H. 2011. Orbitally forced Azolla blooms and Middle Eocene Arctic hydrology: Clues from palynology. Geology, 39(5): 427 – 430. doi: 10.1130/G31640.1 PDF download from journal website (subscription req’d).
9. Eldrett JS, Greenwood DR, Harding IC, and Huber M. 2009. Increased seasonality through the Eocene to Oligocene transition in northern high latitudes. Nature, 459: 969 – 974. doi:10.1038/nature08069 PDF [reprint requests should be directed to J.S.E.]
10. Schouten S, Eldrett J, Greenwood DR, Harding I, Baas M, and Sinninghe Damsté JS. 2008. Onset of long-term cooling of Greenland near the Eocene-Oligocene boundary as revealed by branched tetraether lipids. Geology, 36(2): 147 – 150. doi: 10.1130/G24332A.1

The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) is an international marine scientific research program that involves 26 countries from around the world. Canada’s membership of IODP is funded largely by NSERC. IODP Canada can be found here.