Cleaning method impact on the Mg/Ca of three planktonic foraminifer species: A downcore study along a depth transect

Abstract

We performed a downcore comparison of Mg/Ca ratios obtained using reductive and non-reductive cleaning methods applied to Globigerinoides ruber, Pulleniatina obliquiloculata and Globorotalia menardii picked along two nearby sediment cores retrieved at 2100 m and 3875 m in the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean. At the shallower site, our results show statistically significant discrepancies in averaged relative Mg/Ca loss induced by the reductive cleaning compared to non-reductive cleaning: G. menardii (8.5%) > G. ruber (6.2%) > P. obliquiloculata (4.4%), suggesting that reductive cleaning impact on relative Mg/Ca loss is species-specific. At the deeper site, differences between the relative Mg/Ca losses for the three species are smaller: G. menardii (3.7%), G. ruber (4.1%) and P. obliquiloculata (6.3%), suggesting the clear impact of in situ preservation state on the cleaning related Mg/Ca loss. The Mg/Ca loss in both relative (%) and absolute (mmol/mol) value of species G. ruber and G. menardii are significantly smaller at the deeper site than the shallower site, implying that these two species which have experienced intense dissolution on the sea-floor are less prone to lose further Mg during the reductive cleaning. P. obliquiloculata, however, show non-significant difference in Mg/Ca loss between the two sites, indicating that the cleaning related Mg/Ca loss in this species is somewhat insensitive to the preservation state at our two sites. Our data reveal that Mg/Ca loss results from partial dissolution induced by the reductive step. We conclude that the non-reductive cleaning approach should be preferred for building inter-laboratory homogeneous datasets of Mg/Ca-derived temperatures, whereas the reductive step should be only included when severe oxide coating is observed.