Mono Lake (CA) is a hydrologically closed lacustrine basin well-known for its paleo-shorelines, which record fluctuations in water level for the last deglacial and late Holocene. Mono Lake is a sentinel of California’s water supply, situated in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada, a mountain range whose snowpack is a vital source of freshwater for urban and agricultural districts to the west and south. Recent droughts, floods, and wildfires show that California is threatened by climate change, but how these changes impact and get recorded by Mono Lake sediments remains poorly known. Here, we use a new radiocarbon-dated deepwater sediment core from Mono Lake to test the hypothesis that organic facies development is controlled by climate and limnological change. An integrated stratigraphic analysis of the core reveals seven lithostratigraphic units that track environmental changes from ~16-4 ka. When compared to available paleo-shoreline and shallow water core data, our results show that high amplitude lakelevel fluctuations of the late Pleistocene produce different patterns of sedimentation and organic enrichment than lower-amplitude water level changes of the early and middle Holocene. The results have implications for understanding patterns of paleo-production and hydroclimate change at Mono Lake.

Previous biostratigraphic studies in the Indian Ocean, equatorial Pacific, Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea document the temporal disappearance of Reticulofenestra pseudoumbilicus in the late Miocene (Tortonian age). This interval has been subsequently defined as the R. pseudoumbilicus paracme. While the cause of the event remains unknown, the geographical extent and global synchronicity of the interval represent an open subject for research. Answers to these questions could help establish the biostratigraphic reliability of the interval and its use for global correlation. In this study, 49 deep-sea drilling sites spread across all major ocean basins were compiled into a biostratigraphic database and studied to evaluate the global extent and timing of the R. pseudoumbilicus paracme. To ensure accurate comparison of the studied sites, the timing of the event was estimated at all sites using the age estimates generated through Undatable MatLab software, which made use of established nannofossil bioevents as age-depth tie points for the analysis. Ages of all nannofossil bioevents were updated to the latest geological time scale. This systematic analysis reveals a prominent distribution of the paracme in the tropical and subtropical regions. The timing of the event in the tropical region appears to be synchronous, with the base around 8.8 Ma and the top of the event around 7.2 Ma. Sites in the equatorial Pacific, central Atlantic and the Indian Oceans record a similar duration of the event. The paracme had a shorter duration towards the southern higher latitudes. Although timings in southern high latitudes are diachronous compared to the tropics, the duration is consistent between sites (Sites 1088 and 1264) in the southern South Atlantic, thereby establishing a new time frame for the event in the region. This study narrows down on ODP Site 806 for a critical evaluation of the nannofossil assemblages, accumulation rates and Reticulofenestra size variation in the late Miocene, including the paracme. Thirty-four samples were collected and analysed for absolute abundance and nannofossil accumulation rates (NAR). Absolute abundance and NAR reveal three distinct stages, herein described as generally low, high, and “crashed” export production of nannofossils. The period of high NAR is characteristic of the late Miocene biogenic bloom interval (ca. 9–4.4 Ma). Importantly, the R. pseudoumbilicus paracme does not only coincide with the start of the biogenic bloom but it was also associated with remarkable changes in Reticulofenestra assemblages. Just before the base of the paracme, all except the smallest (&lt;3 µm in coccolith size) Reticulofenestra groups experienced a sharp decline in abundance. Subsequently, the relative abundance of the Reticulofenestra morphospecies indicates the dominance of bloom-forming small and medium Reticulofenestra during the late Miocene biogenic bloom interval. The end of the biogenic bloom interval is concurrent with a decrease in the contribution of small Reticulofenestra. The exact biotic and abiotic processes that led to these major shifts in plankton composition are yet to be discovered, but the findings presented herein show that the mechanisms behind the temporary disappearance of R. pseudoumbilicus in the tropics most likely involved the interplay between a broad range of ecological changes and evolutionary processes affecting the Reticulofenestra assemblages. / <p>The work for this thesis was financially supported by the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree PANGEAprogramme.</p>