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1400 yr multiproxy record of climate variability from the northern Gulf of Mexico

¹ College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida 33701, USA
² U.S. Geological Survey, 600 Fourth Street South, St. Petersburg, Florida 33701, USA
³ College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida 33701, USA
⁴ Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78759, USA

A continuous decadal-scale resolution record of climate variability over the past 1400 yr in the northern Gulf of Mexico was constructed from a box core recovered in the Pigmy Basin, northern Gulf of Mexico. Proxies include paired analyses of Mg/Ca and ¹⁸O in the white variety of the planktic foraminifer Globigerinoides ruber and relative abundance variations of G. sacculifer in the foraminifer assemblages. Two multi-decadal intervals of sustained high Mg/Ca indicate that Gulf of Mexico sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were as warm or warmer than near-modern conditions between 1000 and 1400 yr B.P. Foraminiferal Mg/Ca during the coolest interval of the Little Ice Age (ca. 250 yr B.P.) indicate that SST was 2–2.5 °C below modern SST. Four minima in the Mg/Ca record between 900 and 250 yr B.P. correspond with the Maunder, Spörer, Wolf, and Oort sunspot minima, suggesting a link between changes in solar insolation and SST variability in the Gulf of Mexico. An abrupt shift recorded in both ¹⁸O_calcite and relative abundance of G. sacculifer occurred ca. 600 yr B.P. The shift in the Pigmy Basin record corresponds with a shift in the sea-salt-sodium (ssNa) record from the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 ice core, linking changes in high-latitude atmospheric circulation with the subtropical Atlantic Ocean.

Key Words: Little Ice Age • Medieval Warm Period • Mg/Ca • Pigmy Basin • Gulf of Mexico • Holocene