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Abstract
Palynologists interested in better understanding the sedimentation and energy of depositional environments have often included studies of palynomaceral fragments, particularly when performing palynofacies analyses. Due to the difficult nature of classifying these fragments, researchers have developed numerous, often overlapping, classification schemes. These different schemes make it difficult to compare and contrast between research projects. Determining the appropriate scheme to apply when counting these fragments can be confusing, and application of these schemes can yield inconclusive results, especially when sedimentation and energy are in constant flux. A scheme of five categories, including brown wood (palynomaceral 1–2), leaf cuticle (palynomaceral 3), black debris (palynomaceral 4), structureless organic matter (SOM) and resin, is utilised here. It is applied to the analysis of 64 modern samples from the top 0–4 cm of sediment collected throughout the Gulf of Papua, Papua New Guinea. These samples span a suite of common marine depositional environments: river mouths and deltas, the proximal portion of the continental shelf dominated by a large clinoform, and turbidite and hemipelagic/pelagic deposits on the slope and in the deep ocean basin. Principal component analysis (PCA) confirms this simplified classification scheme provides an indirect means of assessing distance from shore and shelf-slope break, overall water depth and sediment accumulation rate, but other factors, such as processing technique, marine productivity, sediment source, time in transport and residence and bioturbation, are taken into account to fully explain distribution.
Acknowledgements
The samples for this work were obtained through the MARGINS Source-to-Sink (S2S) Focus Initiative funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Marathon GeoDE (Geoscience Diversity Enrichment) Fellowship provided funding for this project, including travel to core curation sites, sample processing, and analysis. The authors would also like to thank AASP–The Palynological Society and Encana for additional scholarships supporting this research. We would also like to thank the reviewers for their in-depth reviews which helped improve the paper.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Marie Louise Thomas
MARIE L. THOMAS is a PhD student in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Louisiana State University, Louisiana, USA, and plans to graduate in May 2015. She completed her undergraduate degree with a double major in biology and geology at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, USA, where she studied salamanders. Marie's dissertation research focuses on the palynology of modern Gulf of Papua sediments, and she won the AASP Student Scholarship supporting her work in 2012. She is particularly interested in how palynology can help reconstruct climate and oceanographic changes. Marie has interned at Hess Corporation for the past two summers working on projects in the North Malay Basin and the Gulf of Mexico. Upon graduation, Marie will be joining Hess Corporation full-time as a biostratigrapher.
David T Pocknall
DAVID T. POCKNALL is a senior geological advisor at Hess Corporation in Houston, Texas, USA. He graduated with a degree in botany from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, and a PhD from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. David joined the New Zealand Geological Survey in 1979 where he focused on Cretaceous and Tertiary palynology and published widely on the subject. During his time at the New Zealand Geological Survey, David spent 18 months on study leave at the US Geological Survey in Denver, Colorado working on Paleocene coals of the Powder River Basin, Wyoming. In 1991, he joined Amoco Production Company in Houston, which later became BP. David's main areas of study were South America (particularly Venezuela and Colombia), Trinidad and Egypt. During his time with BP, David was a team leader in Exploration and Production Technology and was also a global recruitment manager. In 2008 he returned to palynology and biostratigraphy. In August 2009 David retired from BP and joined Hess Corporation working on stratigraphical projects in Hess's global portfolio of exploration and production assets, and also spent two years leading the reservoir analysis group in Hess's technology organisation. He served as AASP Secretary-Treasurer from 1993 to 1998 and was President of AASP between 2000 and 2002, and presently chairs the CENEX committee.
Sophie Warny
SOPHIE WARNY is an Associate Professor of Palynology in the department of Geology and Geophysics and a curator at the Museum of Natural Science at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA. She has a long history with AASP as she won the AASP Student Award in 1996. Sophie received her PhD from the Université Catholique de Louvain, in Belgium working with Dr Jean-Pierre Suc. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the Messinian Salinity Crisis. Since graduating, she has been working on Antarctic sediments that were acquired via the ANDRILL SMS and SHALDRIL programs. In 2011, Sophie received the prestigious NSF CAREER award to support her palynological research in Antarctica. In addition to her research, Sophie teaches historical geology, palaeobotany and micropalaeontology. She currently has a research group that is composed of three PhD students, three masters students and one undergraduate student, who are working on various sections ranging in age from Cretaceous to various periods of the Cenozoic. Since being hired at LSU, she has graduated nine students, all of whom are now employed in the oil and gas industry with Hess, BP, Devon Energy, Chevron, BHP Billiton Petroleum, and EOG.
Samuel J Bentley
SAMUEL J. BENTLEY, Sr. is director of the LSU Coastal Studies Institute, and holds the rank of professor, and the Billy and Ann Harrison Chair in Sedimentary Geology in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Louisiana State University (LSU), Louisiana, USA. He obtained BA and MS degrees from the University of Georgia, and his PhD from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Samuel's research focuses on the transport and accumulation of fine sediments on continental margins, from deltas to deep-sea sedimentary systems. Prior to his present appointments at LSU, he held the Canada Research Chair in Seabed Processes at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, and before that, was in the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences at LSU. His present research group at LSU includes three masters and five doctoral students, whose projects include palaeoclimatic studies, as well as work on the morphodynamics of the Mississippi River Delta.
Andre W Droxler
ANDRÉ DROXLER is a professor of Earth Science at Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA. He obtained his MS degree from the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland and his PhD from the University of Miami, Florida, USA. His research focuses on carbonate sedimentology (emphasising periplatform carbonate oozes), Noegene palaeoceanography and palaeoclimatology, and shallow carbonate platforms and deep adjacent environments. Andrés research areas include the Nicaraugua Rise and Belize in the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the Bahamas in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean, the Maldives in the equatorial Indian Ocean, and the Queensland Plateau/Great Barrier Reef and the Gulf of Papua in the southwest Pacific Ocean.
Charles A Nittrouer
CHARLES NITTROUER is a Professor in Earth and Space Sciences and in the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA. He obtained his PhD from the University of Washington. His research interests include the modern and ancient formation of sedimentary strata in continental margin environments, and the effects of physical and biological oceanic processes on sedimentary characteristics. Chuck has made a career studying places where terrestrial sediment sources enter the ocean. These have included some of the biggest rivers (e.g., Amazon, Yangtze, Fly) and smaller systems (e.g., Po, Rhone, Sepik, Columbia, Eel, Copper), as well as tidewater glaciers entering southern and northern hemisphere oceans (e.g., Antarctica, Patagonia, Alaska).