Time Scale of the Wisconsin/Holocene Transition: Oxygen Isotope Record in the Western Equatorial Pacific

Abstract

An evaluation of both published and new oxygen isotope and radiocarbon data from the west equatorial Pacific (7 box cores, 2 piston cores, 2 gravity cores) indicates that there was no significant input of meltwater to the ocean before 14,000 ¹⁴C yr B.P. This finding is in conflict with various early deglaciation scenarios suggested several years ago on the basis of Wisconsin/Holocene transition records from the Atlantic, but agrees with late-onset scenarios proposed more recently, both for Pacific and Atlantic deglaciation records.