Expedition 363 West Pacific Warm Pool: planktonic foraminifer biostratigraphy and the evolution of Pulleniatina

This grant supports the participation of UK scientists Professor Paul Pearson in Expedition 363 of the International Ocean Discovery Program which plans to study the history of the 'Indo-Pacific Warm Pool' over the last 15 million years. It includes costs to cover his time while on board ship (2 months at sea) and post-expedition scientific study.

Sea surface temperatures exceed 28oC across a huge area of the tropical western Pacific and Indian Oceans. Known as the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP), this area is fundamental to the global atmospheric circulation and hydrologic cycle. The IPWP is intensifying with global warming, but modelling its likely future is challenging. Expedition n363 aims to study its temperature and climatic history over the past 15 million years, including through glacial to interglacial climate cycles and back to the globally warm Miocene epoch. Understanding its past history will help determine if its current temperature is near to its likely maximum or if global warming can cause much greater intensification in the future.

Professor Pearson is a specialist in the study of microscopic fossils called planktonic foraminifera. He will study the evolution of the ocean plankton in the region over the study period, in relation to climatic change and sea level fluctuations which greatly affect the distribution of land masses and shallow seas and hence ocean current patterns. The foraminifera are also used to determine the age of the sediments drilled (called biostratigraphy) and providing other expedition scientists with a high quality planktonic foraminifer biostratigraphy will be one of the main features of this project. In additional there is a particular focus on an evolutionary lineage of foraminifera called Pulleniatina which has considerable untapped potential for stratigraphic work and also as a case study in the detailed speciation and extinction of a group of plankton. Study of this group will be facilitated by the large populations and varying morphology exhibited by them and because, like snails, they can be left or right handed and the pattern of coiling through time and across space is highly complex and potentially very informative.

Specific users and how they will benefit:

The countries of SE Asia. The Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP) region contains a reservoir of warm ocean water that has a fundamental impact on the global climate state. Very high rates of evaporation and vigorous atmospheric convection cause extreme cloud formation and precipitation and a thick troposphere. The IPWP drives oceanic circulation patterns (the vigour of the subtropical gyres and western boundary currents) and the atmosphere (the Hadley circulation and the trans-Pacific Walker circulation). It is also fundamental to the El Nino oscillation and the Indian Ocean dipole. It dominates weather across an enormous and (in places) densely populated area, including the SE Asian monsoon and Pacific typhoons, affecting a broad swathe from India to Japan and Australia. The IPWP region itself is home to about 1 billion people, many of whom are highly subsistent on local agriculture and fisheries, with a further ~3 billion people directly affected by weather generated there. The area experiences extremely warm climate and is vulnerable to climatic extremes including drought, flooding and rising sea levels. Although textbooks state that 30oC is rarely exceeded in the open ocean, and never by much, the entire region is now warming and a historically unprecedented area of super-warm SST is developing, with the highest rates of sea level rise globally across the region. Public awareness of the risks and challenges of climate change is relatively low. Improved forecasting of climate change under different future pathway is vital for all aspects of regional planning and annual forecasting, vital for agriculture. Understanding the climate history of the region, as proposed in Expedition 363, including in past warm greenhouse phases, will help actively improve model predictions for the region and globally.

The UK public. Public interest in climate change is at an all-time high but the issues surrounding ecological changes in the ocean, the feedbacks involved, and potential effects on the composition of plankton communities, are poorly known outside of academia. Hence it is vital that innovative and striking ways of reaching the public are sought. Participation in exciting international expeditions via the IODP provide a unique opportunity for creating awareness and interest in climate change in the marine realm.

Hydrocarbon Exploration Industry: Hydrocarbon exploration frequently involves biostratigraphic analysis of wells using planktonic foraminifera. Biostratigraphy allows for accurate age control as well as correlation, which aids in defining the 3D structure of subsurface reservoirs and hence their economic potential. This project will also produce new data on the taxonomy and geographic distribution of this important fossil group. Previous taxonomic work by the PI is routinely used by the exploration industry around the world.

Maximizing the likelihood that benefits will be achieved:

The IODP has a vigorous public awareness and outreach programme which is organized via specialist outreach and educational officers and participants organized by IODP. The PI will contribute fully to all such shipboard and post-cruise initiatives. Every opportunity will be taken to contribute to outreach activities both during and after the Expedition. In addition, UKIODP maintains a thriving inter-connected group of active researchers whose constructive interaction greatly adds to the success and cohesion of UK participation in the program. The PI will contribute fully to UKIODP newsletter articles and meetings, in collaboration with other UK scientists on Expedition 363. The PI has already agreed to present initial results at one public group (Bath Geological Society on 2 November 2017) and other such engagement activities are highly likely.

The PI has informal contacts with biostratigraphers working in hydrocarbon exploration both in the UK and worldwide.