Nauter‐Alves, Andressa, Evans, David, Katz, Miriam E., Gray, William R., Rae, James W. B. and Borrelli, Chiara (2025) Thermal and non‐thermal controls on benthic foraminiferal Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, B/Ca, and Mg/Li: global core‐top compilation, revised calibrations, and application to the geologic record. Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 40 (12), [e2025PA005176]. (doi:10.1029/2025PA005176).
Abstract
Benthic foraminiferal Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, B/Ca, and Mg/Li data are used to reconstruct deep-sea temperature and seawater carbonate chemistry. However, the concurrent influence of various environmental parameters on these proxies is not fully understood. Here, we compile published and unpublished element/Ca core-top data from Cibicidoides mundulus, C. pachyderma, Lobatula wuellerstorfi, Oridorsalis umbonatus, Nuttallides umbonifera, and Uvigerina spp. to determine the sensitivity of these species' Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, B/Ca, and Mg/Li to temperature, calcite saturation state (Ω calcite), dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), and salinity. By applying multivariate linear regression analysis, we disentangle the effects of these environmental parameters on these species element/Ca. Based on this, we provide multivariate element/Ca calibrations with temperature and Ω calcite sensitivities for all species-elemental system combinations. Overall, our analysis reveals that: (a) the Mg/Ca-sensitivity to temperature is substantially lower compared to most previous approaches when accounting for the effect of Ω calcite; (b) Sr/Ca is driven dominantly by Ω calcite; (c) B/Ca can be linearly related to Ω calcite; and (d) Mg/Li-temperature calibrations have substantially lower degrees of unexplained variance compared to Mg/Ca. Our calibrations offer a statistically robust approach that also allows us to quantify the uncertainties in the reconstruction of temperature and carbonate chemistry when these element/Ca proxies are used. Finally, we present user-friendly data processing software (“ElCaRBenthic”) that can simultaneously solve up to two benthic foraminiferal element/Ca data sets for temperature and Ω calcite (e.g., Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca), while providing the ability to correct for long-term changes in seawater elemental chemistry and propagating all sources of uncertainty.
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