INVESTIGADORES
LAPRIDA Cecilia
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Late Quaternary benthic foraminifera from the Argentine coastal shelf: a review.
Autor/es:
LAPRIDA, C. GARCIA CHAPORI, N., WATANABE, S., TOTAH, V. AND COMPAGNUCCI, R.
Lugar:
Córdoba
Reunión:
Congreso; 9º Congreso Argentino de Paleontología y Bioestratigrafía,; 2006
Resumen:
The Argentina
continental shelf (ACS) is one of the largest shelves in the world in which
Quaternary sea-level fluctuations prevailed over tectonic and isostatic factors. Since the pioneer study
of Boltovskoy (1954), some benthic foraminiferal studies have been performed in
short cores from the ACS (core length between 1 and 7 m) retrieving Late
Pleistocene to Holocene sediments. Recently, this kind of studies have been
intensified with the aim to understand the paleoclimatic implications of the
post-LGM (Late Glacial Maximum) evolution of passive continental margins. We
present here a brief summary of the results of studies carried out in the ACS
in these 50 years of work.
In the northern shelf (35 to 41°S), outer shelf cores
(> 100 m
water depth, core length ~4.5-6m) retrieved late Pleistocene and Holocene
sediments. Lowermost samples correspond to pre-LGM inner shelf environments;
littoral to upper sublittoral environments related to LGM lowstand are
recognized between ~3-4 m
depth in the cores; above it, coastal and inner shelf environments dominated
by Malvinas Current (MC) fauna are
documented in relation to the early Holocene transgression (Boltovskoy, 1973).
Cores from -50 to -100 m
(core length ~1 to 4.5 m)
contained littoral and inner shelf faunas associated with the beginning of the
Late Glacial transgression (Boltovskoy, 1954, 1973, Ferrero, 2005). Isolated
specimens of MC species were found in cores at ~-70 to -100 m, related to
short-term variations of its western boundary during the early Holocene
(Boltovskoy, 1973). Cores from depths shallower than -50 m (core length ~1-6 m) retrieved Holocene sequences
(Boltovskoy, 1973, Bernasconi and Cusminsky, in press). Benthic foraminifers
indicate coastal settings related to successive positions of the coastline
prior to 6000 BP and reflect the rapid sea level rise during the early
Holocene. Salt marsh deposits and tidal flats were recognized at -12 m in Colorado Basin
for the last 6500 years (Gómez et al., 2000). In the Salado Basin, two pulses
of climatic deterioration were detected in nearshore cores reflected in sudden
sea level falls which, according to the ages proposed by Vilanova et al. (2006), coincide with the
Neoglaciation between 5400 and 4900 BP, and with the cold water invasion on the
shelf (Laprida et al., 2004). In the northern Patagonian shelf (41 to 46°30'S,
water depth ~50-100 m),
foraminiferal assemblages indicate late Pleistocene lowstand deposits below ~4m
depth in the cores, and early Holocene inner shelf facies above it (Boltovskoy,
1973). Isolated MC specimens were found in cores at ~75-100 m water depth. Shorter
cores from 45 to 47°S (water depth ~40-143 m) retrieved only Holocene sediments
dominated by inner shelf species, with no outstanding variations in faunal
composition (Boltovskoy, 1954, Bernasconi and Cusminsky, 2005).