The isotopic composition of neodymium (εNd) extracted from sedimentary Fe-Mn oxyhydroxide offers potential for reconstructing paleo-circulation, but its application depends on extraction methodology and the mechanisms that relate authigenic εNd to bottom water. Here we test methods to extract authigenic εNd from Gulf of Alaska (GOA) sediments and assess sources of leachate Nd, including potential contamination from trace dispersed volcanic ash. We show that one dominant phase is extracted via leaching of core-top sediments. Major and trace element geochemistry demonstrate that this phase is authigenic Fe-Mn oxyhydroxide. Contamination of leachate (authigenic) Nd from detrital sources is insignificant (<1%); our empirical results are consistent with established kinetic mineral dissolution rates and theory. Contamination of extracted εNd from leaching of volcanic ash is below analytical uncertainty. However, the εNd of core-top leachates in the GOA is consistently more radiogenic than bottom water. We infer that authigenic phases record pore water εNd, and the relationships of εNd among bottom water, pore water, authigenic phases and detrital sediments are primarily governed by the exposure time of bottom water to sea-floor sediments, rate of exchange across the sediment-water interface and the reactivity and composition of detrital sediments. We show that this conceptual model is applicable on the Pacific basin scale and provides a new framework to understand the role of authigenic phases in both modern and paleo-applications including the use of authigenic εNd as a paleocirculation tracer.

Columbia River megafloods occurred repeatedly during the last deglaciation, but the impacts of this fresh water on Pacific hydrography are largely unknown. To reconstruct changes in ocean circulation during this period, we used a numerical model to simulate the flow trajectory of Columbia River megafloods and compiled records of sea surface temperature, paleo-salinity, and deep-water radiocarbon from marine sediment cores in the Northeast Pacific. The North Pacific sea surface cooled and freshened during the early deglacial (19.0-16.5 ka) and Younger Dryas (12.9-11.7 ka) intervals, coincident with the appearance of subsurface water masses depleted in radiocarbon relative to the sea surface. We infer that Pacific meltwater fluxes contributed to net Northern Hemisphere cooling prior to North Atlantic Heinrich Events, and again during the Younger Dryas stadial. Abrupt warming in the Northeast Pacific similarly contributed to hemispheric warming during the Bølling and Holocene transitions. These findings underscore the importance of changes in North Pacific freshwater fluxes and circulation in deglacial climate events.

New radiocarbon and sedimentological results from the Gulf of Alaska document recurrent millennial-scale episodes of reorganized Pacific Ocean ventilation synchronous with rapid Cordilleran Ice Sheet discharge, indicating close coupling of ice-ocean dynamics spanning the past 42,000 years. Ventilation of the intermediate-depth North Pacific tracks strength of the Asian Monsoon, supporting a role for moisture and heat transport from low-latitudes in North Pacific paleoclimate. Changes in 14C age of intermediate waters are in phase with peaks in Cordilleran ice-rafted debris delivery, and both consistently precede ice discharge events from the Laurentide Ice Sheet, known as Heinrich Events. This timing precludes an Atlantic trigger for Cordilleran Ice Sheet retreat, and instead implicates the Pacific as an early part of a cascade of dynamic climate events with global impact.

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Neodymium (Nd) isotopes are considered a valuable tracer of modern and past ocean circulation. However, the promise of Nd isotope as a water mass tracer is hindered because there is not an entirely self-consistent model of the marine geochemical cycle of rare earth elements (REEs, of which Nd is one). That is, the prevailing mechanisms to describe the distributions of elemental and isotopic Nd are not completely reconciled. Here, we use published [Nd] and Nd isotope data to examine the prevailing model assumptions, and further compare these data to emergent alternative models that emphasize benthic processes in controlling the cycle of marine REEs and Nd isotopes. Our conclusion is that changing from a "top-down" driven model for REE cycling to one of a "bottom-up" benthic source model can provide consistent interpretations of these data for both elemental and isotopic Nd distributions. We discuss the implications such a benthic flux model carries for interpretation of Nd isotope data as a tracer for understanding modern and past changes in ocean circulation.

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The progress of science is tied to the standardization of measurements, instruments, and data. This is especially true in the Big Data age, where analyzing large data volumes critically hinges on the data being standardized. Accordingly, the lack of community‐sanctioned data standards in paleoclimatology has largely precluded the benefits of Big Data advances in the field. Building upon recent efforts to standardize the format and terminology of paleoclimate data, this article describes the Paleoclimate Community reporTing Standard (PaCTS), a crowdsourced reporting standard for such data. PaCTS captures which information should be included when reporting paleoclimate data, with the goal of maximizing the reuse value of paleoclimate data sets, particularly for synthesis work and comparison to climate model simulations. Initiated by the LinkedEarth project, the process to elicit a reporting standard involved an international workshop in 2016, various forms of digital community engagement over the next few years, and grassroots working groups. Participants in this process identified important properties across paleoclimate archives, in addition to the reporting of uncertainties and chronologies; they also identified archive‐specific properties and distinguished reporting standards for new versus legacy data sets. This work shows that at least 135 respondents overwhelmingly support a drastic increase in the amount of metadata accompanying paleoclimate data sets. Since such goals are at odds with present practices, we discuss a transparent path toward implementing or revising these recommendations in the near future, using both bottom‐up and top‐down approaches.

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