Subaquatic Dust Deposits - Mineral Dust: A Key Player in the Earth System - page 443

Table 17.1 Grain-size-derived proxies for desert dust in marine sediments used in literature
Grain-size proxy

Proxy for Location Citation

Terrigenous sediment
<63 m

Total dust Distal North Pacific Rea and Janecek ( 1981 )

Proximal Tasman Sea Hesse ( 1994 )

Terrigenous sediment
>6 m

Total dust Eq. Atlantic Sarnthein et al. ( 1981 )

Indian Ocean Clemens and Prell ( 1990 )

Terrigenous sediment
>60 m

Total dust Indian Ocean De Deckker et al. ( 1991 )

Bulk sediment
>63 m

Wind stress Eq. Atlantic Matthewson et al. ( 1995 )

Moment statistics
(mean, median)
after Folk and
Ward ( 1957 )

Total dust Indian Ocean Prins and Weltje ( 1999 )

Bulk sediment,
unmixed with
EMMA

Aridity Indian Ocean Prins and Weltje ( 1999 )

Bulk sediment,
unmixed with
EMMA

Wind stress Indian Ocean Prins and Weltje ( 1999 )

Terrigenous sediment
18-63 m

Total dust Eq. Atlantic Nizou et al. ( 2011 )

Terrigenous sediment
>10 m

Total dust Eq. Atlantic Meyer et al. ( 2013 )

Similar to using the size of the wind-blown sediment fraction as a proxy for wind
strength in the past, the flux of the wind-blown sediment fraction can be considered a
proxy for palaeo-aridity in the source area. Following this approach, various palaeo-
environmental reconstructions based on marine sediment cores were established in
the Indian Ocean (Prins and Weltje 1999 ; Prins et al. 2000 ; Weltje and Prins 2003 ,
2007 ), southeast Atlantic (Stuut et al. 2002b , 2004 ; Stuut and Lamy 2004 ), southeast
Pacific (Stuut and Lamy 2004 ; Stuut et al. 2006 ), equatorial North Atlantic (Holz
et al. 2004 , 2007 ; McGregor et al. 2009 ; Filipsson et al. 2011 ; McGee et al. 2013 ),
Mediterranean (Hamann et al. 2008 ) and southeast Indian Ocean (Stuut et al. 2014 ).
As discussed before, the most intuitive relationship between wind strength and
sedimentary deposits resulting from aeolian transport is the particle size of the
deposited sediments. Several size-derived proxies were suggested to characterise
dust in subaqueous sediments such as certain size fractions (Table 17.1 ). Most
of these studies isolated the land-derived fraction by removing organic fractions
(marine carbonate, organic matter, biogenic opal) and sometimes also authigenic
or volcanic minerals (e.g. Rea and Janecek 1981 ), after which the grain-size
distribution of the non-soluble fraction was analysed.
In an attempt to characterise and quantify the wind-blown portion within the
land-derived sediment fraction, Prins and Weltje ( 1999 ) presented the end-member
modelling approach, which is based on the assumption that every sediment transport
mechanism leaves its own characteristic imprint on the grain-size distribution of