New working group launched: Marine Arctic Diatoms (MARDI)

PAGES is pleased to announce the launch of a new working group: Marine Arctic Diatoms (MARDI).

"Diatoms are one of the most important primary producers in the world’s oceans. They secrete siliceous frustules that are often well preserved in sediments, and due to their diversity and selective environmental preferences, they are ideal proxies for paleoceanographic studies. In the Arctic, marine sedimentary diatoms are widely used to reconstruct sea-surface conditions, including temperature (SST), salinity, and sea-ice cover.

Over the last decades, hundreds of Arctic surface sediments have been analyzed for this purpose. This work has however been carried out by several independent research groups around the world, often using slightly different methodologies and diatom taxonomies. 

To enable their full potential for quantitative diatom-based surface ocean reconstructions, MARDI aims to align and integrate the various surface datasets resulting in an open-access Pan-Arctic diatom dataset."

> Find out more about MARDI
> Join the MARDI mailing list
> Contact a member of the steering group