Beryllium isotopes in central Arctic Ocean sediments over the past 12.3 million years:: Stratigraphic and paleoclimatic implications

The upper 200 m of the sediments recovered during IODP Leg 302, the Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX), to the Lomonosov Ridge in the central Arctic Ocean consist almost exclusively of detrital material. The scarcity of biostratigraphic markers severely complicates the establishment of a reliable chronostratigraphic framework for these sediments, which contain the first continuous record of the Neogene environmental and climatic evolution of the Arctic region. Here we present profiles of cosmogenic (10)Be together with the seawater-derived fraction of stable (9)Be obtained from the ACEX cores. The down-core decrease of (10)Be/(9)Be provides an average sedimentation rate of 14.5 +/- 1 m/Ma for the uppermost 151 m of the ACEX record and allows the establishment of a chronostratigraphy for the past 12.3 Ma. The age-corrected (10)Be concentrations and (10)Be/(9)Be ratios suggest the existence of an essentially continuous sea ice cover over the past 12.3 Ma.