Terrigenous input response to glacial/interglacial climatic variations over southern Baja California: a rock magnetic approach

The sediments deposited off south-western Baja California have recorded millennial-scale fluctuations in biogenic compounds and trace metals accumulation during the last glacial period Ortiz, J.D., O’Connell, S.B., DelViscio, J., Dean, W.E., Carriquiry, J.D., Marchitto, T., Zheng, Y., van Geen, A., 2004. Enhanced marine productivity off western North America during warm climate intervals of the past 52 ky. Geology 32, 521–524; Dean, W.E., Zheng, Y., Ortiz, J.D., van Geen, A., 2006. Sediment Cd and Mo accumulation in the oxygen-minimum zone off western Baja California linked to global climate over the past 52 ka. Paleoceanography 21, PA4209]. Since the variations in trace metals concentration appear to result from dilution with nonbiogenic matter, the variability of the terrigenous sedimentation needs to be addressed. Therefore, we performed rock magnetic and geochemical analysis on a 38 m-long sediment core collected from the slope off Baja California. The temporal framework provided by ¹⁴C dating and identification of palaeoclimatic transitions allows assigning the sequence to the last glacial–interglacial cycle (last 120 ka). The comparison of magnetic and geochemical properties led to retain the hypothesis of a primary modulation of iron oxides quantity and quality by terrigenous input variations, with a secondary diagenetic amplification. Two magnetic mineral input regimes are distinguished: (i) magnetic susceptibility variations reveal changes in titano-magnetite concentration related to fluvial transport of the terrigenous fraction; (ii) coercivity changes allow detecting variations of hematite or goethite concentrations, minerals generally issued from aeolian deflation of weathered rock surfaces. These two regimes are paced by two distinct climatic forcing: the millennial-scale changes in titano-magnetite input are related to the northern hemisphere climatic variability whilst the record of wind-blown magnetic mineral input contains its major power in the precessional frequency band, with higher input during low insolation periods (and conversely). This record highlights the great sensibility of this region to high and low latitudes climatic regimes.