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    Collection of North Pacific core-top foraminifera census data. Grant abstract: The geological record offers an invaluable window into the different ways earth's climate can operate. The most recent large-scale changes in earth's climate, prior to modern climate change, were the Pleistocene glacial cycles, which feature growth and disintegration of large ice sheets, rapid shifts in major rain belts, and abrupt changes in ocean circulation. Changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, reconstructed from air bubbles in ice cores, are intimately linked with these ice age climate events. Indeed the close coupling of CO2 and temperature over glacial-interglacial cycles has become an iconic image in climate science, a poster child for the importance of CO2 in climate, and the natural template against which to compare current man-made CO2 rise. However despite the high profile of glacial-interglacial CO2 change, we still don't fully understand its cause. The leading hypotheses for glacial CO2 change involve increased CO2 uptake by the ocean during ice ages, which is vented to the atmosphere during deglaciation. However despite decades of work these hypotheses have had few direct tests, due to a lack of data on CO2 storage in the glacial ocean. One of the most glaring holes in our understanding of ice age CO2 and climate change is the behaviour of the Pacific. This basin contains half of global ocean volume, and ~30 times more CO2 than the atmosphere, and so its behaviour will have global impact. It has also recently been suggested that the North Pacific may play an active role in deglacial CO2 rise, with local deep water formation helping to release CO2 from the deep ocean to the atmosphere. If correct, this hypothesis provides a new view of Earth's climate system, with deep water able to form in each high latitude basin in the recent past, and the North Pacific potentially playing a pivotal role in deglaciation. However few data exist to test either the long-standing ideas on the Pacific's role in glacial CO2 storage, nor the more recent hypothesis that North Pacific deep water contributed to rapid deglacial CO2 rise. Given the size of the Pacific CO2 reservoir, our lack of knowledge on its behaviour is a major barrier to a full understanding of glacial-interglacial CO2 change and the climate of the ice ages. This proposal aims to transform our understanding of ice age CO2 and climate change, by investigating how the deep North Pacific stored CO2 during ice ages, and released it back to the atmosphere during deglaciations. We will use cutting-edge geochemical measurements of boron isotopes in microfossil shells (which record the behaviour of CO2 in seawater) and radiocarbon (which records how recently deep waters left the surface ocean), on recently collected samples from deep ocean sediment cores. By comparing these new records to other published data, we will be able to distinguish between different mechanisms of CO2 storage in the deep Pacific, and to test the extent of North Pacific deep water formation and CO2 release during the last deglaciation. We will also improve the techniques used to make boron isotope measurements, and add new constraints on the relationship between boron isotopes and seawater CO2 chemistry, which will help other groups using this technique to study CO2 change. To help us understand more about the mechanisms of changes in CO2 and ocean circulation, and provide synergy with scientists in other related disciplines, we will compare our data to results from earth system models, and collaborate with experts on nutrient cycling and climate dynamics. Our project will ultimately improve understanding of CO2 exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, which is an important factor for predicting the path of future climate change.

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    Pulleniatina sample weights U1486. Grant abstract: This grant supports the participation of UK scientists Professor Paul Pearson in Expedition 363 of the International Ocean Discovery Program which plans to study the history of the 'Indo-Pacific Warm Pool' over the last 15 million years. It includes costs to cover his time while on board ship (2 months at sea) and post-expedition scientific study. Sea surface temperatures exceed 28oC across a huge area of the tropical western Pacific and Indian Oceans. Known as the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP), this area is fundamental to the global atmospheric circulation and hydrologic cycle. The IPWP is intensifying with global warming, but modelling its likely future is challenging. Expedition n363 aims to study its temperature and climatic history over the past 15 million years, including through glacial to interglacial climate cycles and back to the globally warm Miocene epoch. Understanding its past history will help determine if its current temperature is near to its likely maximum or if global warming can cause much greater intensification in the future. Professor Pearson is a specialist in the study of microscopic fossils called planktonic foraminifera. He will study the evolution of the ocean plankton in the region over the study period, in relation to climatic change and sea level fluctuations which greatly affect the distribution of land masses and shallow seas and hence ocean current patterns. The foraminifera are also used to determine the age of the sediments drilled (called biostratigraphy) and providing other expedition scientists with a high quality planktonic foraminifer biostratigraphy will be one of the main features of this project. In additional there is a particular focus on an evolutionary lineage of foraminifera called Pulleniatina which has considerable untapped potential for stratigraphic work and also as a case study in the detailed speciation and extinction of a group of plankton. Study of this group will be facilitated by the large populations and varying morphology exhibited by them and because, like snails, they can be left or right handed and the pattern of coiling through time and across space is highly complex and potentially very informative.

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    Pulleniatina U1486 coiling sequence. Grant abstract: This grant supports the participation of UK scientists Professor Paul Pearson in Expedition 363 of the International Ocean Discovery Program which plans to study the history of the 'Indo-Pacific Warm Pool' over the last 15 million years. It includes costs to cover his time while on board ship (2 months at sea) and post-expedition scientific study. Sea surface temperatures exceed 28oC across a huge area of the tropical western Pacific and Indian Oceans. Known as the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP), this area is fundamental to the global atmospheric circulation and hydrologic cycle. The IPWP is intensifying with global warming, but modelling its likely future is challenging. Expedition n363 aims to study its temperature and climatic history over the past 15 million years, including through glacial to interglacial climate cycles and back to the globally warm Miocene epoch. Understanding its past history will help determine if its current temperature is near to its likely maximum or if global warming can cause much greater intensification in the future. Professor Pearson is a specialist in the study of microscopic fossils called planktonic foraminifera. He will study the evolution of the ocean plankton in the region over the study period, in relation to climatic change and sea level fluctuations which greatly affect the distribution of land masses and shallow seas and hence ocean current patterns. The foraminifera are also used to determine the age of the sediments drilled (called biostratigraphy) and providing other expedition scientists with a high quality planktonic foraminifer biostratigraphy will be one of the main features of this project. In additional there is a particular focus on an evolutionary lineage of foraminifera called Pulleniatina which has considerable untapped potential for stratigraphic work and also as a case study in the detailed speciation and extinction of a group of plankton. Study of this group will be facilitated by the large populations and varying morphology exhibited by them and because, like snails, they can be left or right handed and the pattern of coiling through time and across space is highly complex and potentially very informative.

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    Data collected from IODP Expedition 353, Site U1446. Data represent ISM derived rainfall and runoff proxies across Termination II. Mid-depth on CCSFA scale. Two age columns derived from age models based on LR04 benthic oxygen isotope record and AICC2012 chronology. Sheet 2 include Globigerinoides ruber sensu-stricto oxygen isotope data, Mg/Ca, Mn/Ca, U/Ca and Nd/Ca Sheet 3 include discrete portable X-Ray Fluorescence data for Ti, Al, K and Rb.

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    The dataset includes oxygen and carbon stable isotopes measured on multispecies planktonic foraminifera from 15 million years ago to the present, as well as trace elements ratio and abundance counts. For the code availability and instructions to run the cGENIE version and experiments see Boscolo-Galazzo, Crichton et al. (2021).

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    This dataset comprises a record of benthic foraminifera count data from three cores that were analysed to assess down core changes in foraminifera abundance from the Paluma Shoals reef complex, Halifax Bay, central Great Barrier Reef, Australia; cores OPS-PC2, OPS-C-PC1 and OPS-D-PC1. The site/core names relate to the sites described in the following paper: Morgan KM, Perry CT, Smithers SG, Daniell JJ and Johnson JA (2016) Extensive reef development within the “mesophotic” nearshore Great Barrier Reef: Evidence for intra-regional variations in coral resilience. Scientific Reports 6:29616. DOI: 10.1038/srep29616.

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    Register of microfossil analyses carried out in the Leeds and London Office during the 1970s and 1980s held in book form and in box files. They are arranged as follows: SAA 1-4409 Calcareous Microfossils onshore; SAB1-3229 Calcareous Microfossils (London) Jurassic onshore; SAC1-3247 Calcareous microfossils (Leeds) Jurassic and Cretaceous onshore; SAD1-1593 Palaeozoic microfossils onshore; SAG 1-2062 Chalk foraminifera onshore; SAY1-1888 Calcareous microfossils offshore; SAZ1-2261 Calcareous microfossils from Continental Shelf (South).

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    Due to differential loading of ice on Britain and Ireland the glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) response and therefore sea-level record will vary with distance from the centre of the British Irish Ice Sheet. GIA models are tested against geological observations, however there is a paucity of observations below -10m depth and the lateglacial period when the BIIS retreated leading to a rapid response of both sea-level and GIA. The aim of the project was to use geophysical data, ground truthed by core material, to find evidence of lateglacial sea-level minima in the Irish and Celtic Sea to refine these GIA models. Cruise log and digital copies of the core information (location, water depth, core length) taken onboard the research cruise CE12008 on the RV Celtic Explorer. A GeoReseource 6m vibrocorer was used to collect sediment samples. Cores where taken at multiple sites and from southern and eastern Ireland: Bantry Bay, Dunmanus Bay, Waterford,Offshore County Louth and Dundalk Bay, offshore Isle of Man; offshore Wales: Cardingan Bay; and offshore Northern Ireland: Kilkeel and Dundrum Bay, Belfast Lough.

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    Registers of microfossil analyses carried out by FW Anderson in London mainly during the 1950s and 1960s, but includes older collections,notably those of Davis (1935) and Burrows (1948). Specimens recorded are mainly ostracods, but include some foraminifera and some charophytes and holothurians. Sample number, locality/borehole, specimen identifications, remarks, cross referencing to the SAM and other data sets are given. The set is arranged: MIK(M) 1-4483 in 41 volumes on Mesozoic (predominantly) ostracods MIK(T) 1-1590 in 11 volumes, Tertiary foraminifera MIK( C) 1-400 in 5 volumes, Carboniferous ostracods MIK (J) 1-1219 in 8 volumes Jurassic microfossils (few identifications) MIK(K) 1-677 in 7 volumes Cretaceous microfossils (identifications patchy) MIK(J)F, MIK(K)F and MIK(T)F are small foreign collections.