A high-resolution record from IODP Site 323-U1440

To advance our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie millennial-scale events, Bering Sea sediment cores from the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program site U1340 were used to construct high-resolution, multiproxy climate records of the last 90,000 years.

Sediment density records show millennial-scale events resembling Dansgaard-Oeschger events, several of which are laminated. Interstadials were characterized by 3–5 °C warming, increased productivity driven by upwelling, and reduced benthic oxygenation. Bering Sea intermediate water also changed over longer timescales; our records show the presence of intermediate water with lower salinity and higher oxygen content than modern beginning around 60 ka and persisting until the beginning of the deglaciation.