Virtual Posters

Rapid environmental change and expanding commercial activities make environmental monitoring of the Arctic seas increasingly important. Satellites and oceanographic moorings have greatly expanded monitoring capabilities, but the data they collect are often spatially and temporally limited. Animals can be used as tools to complement the instrumental record. Bivalves are sessile, long-lived organisms and mineralogy of their shells offers a potential to reconstruct environmental history. Trace elements derived from seawater are incorporated into the shell matrix and standardized mineral ratios may reflect ecosystem-relevant parameters (e.g. primary production, temperature, salinity, pollution, etc.) at the time of shell deposition.

Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), a method used to acquire element composition of solid samples, allows high resolution ( a year in all samples. The increase occurred shortly after the commencement of the annual growth (just proximal to the growth band), suggesting that it may have occurred in spring or early summer. Barium is often linked with sedimentation of phytoplankton blooms, which seems like a possible explanation for the abrupt peaks in our study. In some studies other mineral proxies (e.g. peaks in strontium, magnesium and manganese) have been associated with temperature, but typically in a complex manner with other factors such as salinity and ontogeny. By analyzing the temporal relationships of multiple geochemical proxies in concert, we hope to better understand how physical and biological processes in Arctic fjords are reflected in shells of bivalves.