The variation in paleoclimate during the last deglaciation and Holocene were evaluated based on physical and biological variation in the bottom water oxygen level on the Baja margin in Soledad Basin. Sediment from core OXMZ MV99-PC14 raised from a depth of 540m off the Magdalena Margin of Baja California, Mexico was analyzed for the presence of benthic foraminifera, which are presumed to respond to marine productivity and change in bottom water oxygen. This location is an ideal location to study paleoclimate oscillation and ocean and atmospheric interactions due to its shallow sill depth (290m), high sediment rate (~110cm/kr), sensitivity to El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and ENSO-like variations. Computed Benthic Foraminiferal Oxygen Index (BFOI) and productivity (DSR-Factor3) variations down core showed enhanced productivity and low oxygen during the Mid Holocene. ENSO-like signals were recorded during the Mid Holocene (4-10 cal BP) when the climate witnessed a cold La Niña-like state. A changing pattern of ocean circulation, depth of thermocline and fluctuations in productivity occurred throughout Holocene in Soledad Basin. This was mainly due to the changing budget of oxygen, created primarily by variations in productivity which had an inverse relationship with oxygen levels. Similar variability was found in low and high latitude paleoclimate records from Chukchi shelf, Cariaco Basin, Santa Barbara basin, Point Conception, and Baja California.

We present a conceptual framework for a new approach to environmental calibration of planktonic foraminifer census counts. This approach is based on simultaneous application of a variety of transfer function techniques, which are trained on geographically constrained calibration data sets. It serves to minimise bias associated with the presence of cryptic species of planktonic foraminifera and provides an objective tool for assessing reliability of environmental estimates in fossil samples, allowing identification of adverse effects of no-analog faunas and technique-specific bias. We have compiled new calibration data sets for the North (N=862) and South (N=321) Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean (N=1111). We show evidence that these data sets offer adequate coverage of the Sea-Surface Temperature (SST) and faunal variation range and that they are not affected by the presence of pre-Holocene samples and/or calcite dissolution. We have applied four transfer function techniques, including Artificial Neural Networks, Revised Analog Method and SIMMAX (with and without distance weighting) on faunal counts in a Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) data set for the Atlantic Ocean (748 samples in 167 cores; based on the GLAMAP-2000 compilation) and a new data set for the Pacific Ocean (265 samples in 82 cores) and show that three of these techniques provide adequate degree of independence for the advantage of a multi-technique approach to be realised. The application of our new approach to the glacial Pacific lends support to the contraction and perhaps even a cooling of the Western Pacific Warm Pool and a substantial (>3?C) cooling of the eastern equatorial Pacific and the eastern boundary currents. Our results do not provide conclusive evidence for LGM warming anywhere in the Pacific. The Atlantic reconstruction shows a number of robust patterns, including substantial cooling of eastern boundary currents with considerable advection of subpolar waters into the Benguela Current, a cooling of the equatorial Atlantic by ~5?C, and steep SST gradients in the mid-latitude North Atlantic. The transfer function techniques generally agree that subtropical gyre areas in both hemispheres did not change significantly since the LGM, although the ANN technique produced glacial SST in the southern gyre 1-2?C warmer than today. We have revisited the issue of sea-ice occurrence in the Nordic Seas and using the distribution of subpolar species of planktonic foraminifera in glacial samples, we conclude that the Norwegian Sea must have been ice-free during the summer.

This is an important and authoritative review of foraminiferal ecology, the first for over a decade. Professor Murray relates ecological data on living forms of foraminifera to the palaeoecology of fossil species, and defines in detail areas of global distribution.

The goal of this book is to provide a current overview of the impacts of climate change on tropical forests, to investigate past, present, and future climatic influences on the ecosystems with the highest biodiversity on the planet.Tropical Rainforest Responses to Climatic Change will be the first book to examine how tropical rain forest ecology is altered by climate change, rather than simply seeing how plant communities were altered. Shifting the emphasis onto ecological processes e.g. how diversity is structured by climate and the subsequent impact on tropical forest ecology, provides the reader with a more comprehensive coverage. A major theme of this book that emerges progressively is the interaction between humans, climate and forest ecology. While numerous books have appeared dealing with forest fragmentation and conservation, none have explicitly explored the long term occupation of tropical systems, the influence of fire and the future climatic effects of deforestation, coupled with anthropogenic emissions. Incorporating modelling of past and future systems paves the way for a discussion of conservation from a climatic perspective, rather than the usual plea to stop logging.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the geological evolution of the Northern Andes and contiguous shield areas, with a focus upon Colombia. Updated geological interpretations are supported by modern lithogeochemical, seismic, gravity and magnetic data and radiogenic isotope and radiometric age determinations. The composite data permits a detailed interpretation of the tectono-magmatic history of the Northern Andean Block, including the Andes of Colombia, northern Ecuador, western Venezuela and eastern Panamá. Tectonic reconstructions based upon characterization of more than thirty litho-tectonic and morpho-structural units, terrane assemblages and tectonic realms, and their bounding suture and fault systems, highlight the intimate and complementary Mesozoic-Cenozoic history of the Northern Andean Block and the Pacific and Caribbean Plates. The complex nature of Northern Andean assembly contrasts with ‘‘classical’’ Central Andean ‘‘Cordilleran-type’’ orogenic models. Differences render the application of typical Cordilleran-type models inappropriate for the Colombian Andes. The importance of underlying Proterozoic through mid-Mesozoic elements, in the development of Meso-Cenozoic Northern Andean orogeny-phase tectonic configurations is analyzed in the light of spatial-temporal studies and reconstructions related to basin formation, sedimentation, deformation, uplift mechanisms, structural style and magmatic evolution. The pre-Andean architecture of north western South America has played a pre-determinative role in the development of the Northern Andean orogenic system. 16 contributions analyze key stratigraphic, structural, metamorphic, magmatic and tectonic questions, and provide solutions as far as the most recent published field-based studies permit. The volume provides geological interpretations and tectonic models which contrast with repetitive theoretical proposals frequently found in the available literature.