On the Isotopic Composition of Late Cenozoic Sea Water

ABSTRACT

Up to one fourth of the isotopic change in foraminifera found in deep-sea cores (or some 0.3 ‰) may be due to a gradual change in the isotopic composition of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. Therefore the peak-to-valley variation of the δ¹⁸0_c of formanifera cannot be used as a measure of the size of glacial ice sheets or of sea level lowerings unless corrected for this factor.

The early stadial of a glacial (e.g. Weichselian at around 55,000 B.P.) might have been more intense than as appears from uncorrected isotopic curves, and the last stadial (e.g. Weichselian around 18 000 B.P.) less intense.