Source-to-Sink Dynamics of Large Sediment Routing Systems With and Without Continental Ice Sheets: Value of Detrital Zircons for Sediment Routing System Characterization and Prediction

Recent work in major sediment routing systems has shown the utility of using U-Pb detrital geochronology of zircons (DZ) collected from terrestrial- to deep-sea deposits to understand sediment provenance and changes in relative river loads through time (Fildani et al., 2016; Sickman et al., 2016; Mason et al., 2017). Specifically, the Mississippi River deep-sea fan system has shown us that submarine fans do faithfully preserve records of terrestrial sediment source area, and that sediment sources within a catchment boundary may change with climatic conditions such as the growth and decay of continental ice sheets (Fildani et al., 2016; Mason et al., 2017). Significant advances in our understanding of how climate affects sediment transfer from source-to-sink can be made by investigating different end-member systems, and the Amazon source-to-sink system represents a globally significant end member without influence of continental ice sheets. Therefore, our goal is to analyze the DZ signature and middle – to late-Pleistocene evolution in the Amazon sediment routing system and fan, using samples from marine sediment cores recovered in the deep-sea Amazon Fan. We will leverage existing detrital geochronology in modern rivers to fingerprint sediment sources preserved in the deep-sea since the middle Pleistocene.