Lipid biomarker proxies: Calibration and application at the southern Italian shelf (Central Mediterranean)

Abstract

Accurate and reliable proxy records with a sufficient temporal resolution are required for the interpretation of past climate variability beyond the period, where instrumental data become available. Hence, various proxies have been developed on the basis of lipid biomarkers and are applied commonly in paleoceanography for the reconstruction of sea surface temperatures (SSTs), salinity, vegetation changes or terrestrial organic matter (OM) input. Additionally, shelf systems, which are characterized by high sedimentation rates and contributions from marine and terrestrial OM are well-suited for generating high quality environmental records. However, these settings are highly dynamic and the quality of the proxy records depends even more on a careful calibration of the transfer functions used to translate the sedimentary lipid signals to the local environment. This thesis aims at such a calibration for the SW Adriatic Sea and Gulf of Taranto (S Italy) to provide a better understanding of lipid-derived proxies (UK'37, TEX86 and stable isotopes of plant waxes), reveals the complexity of influencing factors in shelf areas and thus improves the knowledge on lipid-based proxies in these systems for future high-resolution paleoenvironmental reconstructions.