Seminar

Ostracod geochemistry has successfully been used to infer past ocean temperature. While magnesium and strontium are two of the most common tracers used in paleoenvironmental studies, other trace elements in shallow marine ostracod shells show promise as useful paleoenvironmental proxies. The aim of this research is to investigate trace elements in ostracod shells to unveil their potential relationships with ocean parameters, such as temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, etc. In order to constrain the trace element content of ostracods, different techniques are used such as ICP-OES, ICP-MS and EPMA. In addition, emphasis is given to the development of new methodologies to include the analyses of juvenile and poor-preserved shells. Thus, this talk will show the preliminary results, as well as the future directions of this research. The estimation of trace element concentrations in marine shells coupled with environmental data from the ocean will give insight about the mechanisms of shell calcification and results from this study will be useful in the evaluation of ostracod chemistry as potential proxies of marine conditions, which in turn is useful in the assessment of the impact of climate change