Benthic and planktic foraminiferal stable isotopes, benthic foraminiferal Mg/Ca data and BWT stack, relative abundance of main benthic foraminiferal species, IRD concentration and magnetic susceptibility of core HH15-1252PC (western Svalbard margin)

Oxygen and carbon isotopes were measured on up to 20 pristine benthic (Cassidulina neoteretis and/or Melonis barleeanus; 150 to 250 μm size fraction) and planktic foraminifera (Neogloboquadrina pachyderma 100 to 500 μm size fraction). For trace element analyses, 10 to 30 pristine C. neoteretis (150 to 250 μm size fraction) or M. baleeanus (150 to 350 μm size fraction) were picked, crashed between two glass slides and cleaned following the oxidative-reductive approach (Boyle and Keigwin, 1985/1986; Pena et al., 2005).

Mg/Ca ratios were then converted to bottom water temperature using calibrations from Kristjánsdóttir et al. (2007). Up to 300 benthic foraminifera were counted on each sample in the 100 to 1000 μm size fraction and relative abundance of the species was calculated in samples with at least 50 specimens. Ice rafted debris was counted in the 150 to 500 μm and >500 μm size fractions and the concentration was calculated.

The grain-size ratio was calculated using the equation from Jessen and Rasmussen (2019). Options