Benthic foraminiferal record of ecosystem variability in the eastern Mediterranean Sea during times of sapropel S5 and S6 deposition

High-resolution benthic foraminiferal and geochemical investigations were carried out across sapropels S-5 and S-6 from two sediment cores in the Levantine Sea to evaluate the impact of climatic and environmental changes on benthic ecosystems during times of sapropel formation. The faunal successions indicate that eutrophication and/or oxygen reduction started several thousand years prior to the onset of sapropel formation, suggesting an early response of the bathyal ecosystems to climatic changes. Severest oxygen depletions appear in the early phases of sapropel formation. The initial reduction of deep-water ventilation is caused by a warming and fresh water-induced stratification of Eastern Mediterranean surface waters. During the late phase of S-5 formation improved oxygenation is restricted to middle bathyal ecosystems, indicating that at least some formation of subsurface water took place. During S-6 formation oxygen depletions and eutrophication were less severe and more variable than during S-5 formation. Estimated oxygen contents were low dysoxic at middle bathyal to anoxic at lower bathyal depths during the early phase Of S-6 formation but never dropped to anoxic values in its late phase. The high benthic ecosystem variability during S-6 formation suggests that water column stratification at deep-water formation sites was in a very unstable mode and susceptible to minor temperature fluctuations at a millennial time-scale. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.