Marine sediments from the North Pacific document two episodes of expansion and strengthening of the subsurface oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) accompanied by seafloor hypoxia during the last deglacial transition. The mechanisms driving this hypoxia remain under debate. We present a new high-resolution alkenone palaeotemperature reconstruction from the Gulf of Alaska that reveals two abrupt warming events of 4-5 degrees Celsius at the onset of the Bølling and Holocene intervals that coincide with sudden shifts to hypoxia at intermediate depths. The presence of diatomaceous laminations and hypoxia-tolerant benthic foraminiferal species, peaks in redox-sensitive trace metals, and enhanced (15)N/(14)N ratio of organic matter, collectively suggest association with high export production. A decrease in (18)O/(16)O values of benthic foraminifera accompanying the most severe deoxygenation event indicates subsurface warming of up to about 2 degrees Celsius. We infer that abrupt warming triggered expansion of the North Pacific OMZ through reduced oxygen solubility and increased marine productivity via physiological effects; following initiation of hypoxia, remobilization of iron from hypoxic sediments could have provided a positive feedback on ocean deoxygenation through increased nutrient utilization and carbon export. Such a biogeochemical amplification process implies high sensitivity of OMZ expansion to warming.

Erosion, sediment production, and routing on a tectonically active continental margin reflect both tectonic and climatic processes; partitioning the relative importance of these processes remains controversial. Gulf of Alaska contains a preserved sedimentary record of the Yakutat Terrane collision with North America. Because tectonic convergence in the coastal St. Elias orogen has been roughly constant for 6 My, variations in its eroded sediments preserved in the offshore Surveyor Fan constrain a budget of tectonic material influx, erosion, and sediment output. Seismically imaged sediment volumes calibrated with chronologies derived from Integrated Ocean Drilling Program boreholes show that erosion accelerated in response to Northern Hemisphere glacial intensification (∼2.7 Ma) and that the 900-km-long Surveyor Channel inception appears to correlate with this event. However, tectonic influx exceeded integrated sediment efflux over the interval 2.8-1.2 Ma. Volumetric erosion accelerated following the onset of quasi-periodic (∼100-ky) glacial cycles in the mid-Pleistocene climate transition (1.2-0.7 Ma). Since then, erosion and transport of material out of the orogen has outpaced tectonic influx by 50-80%. Such a rapid net mass loss explains apparent increases in exhumation rates inferred onshore from exposure dates and mapped out-of-sequence fault patterns. The 1.2-My mass budget imbalance must relax back toward equilibrium in balance with tectonic influx over the timescale of orogenic wedge response (millions of years). The St. Elias Range provides a key example of how active orogenic systems respond to transient mass fluxes, and of the possible influence of climate-driven erosive processes that diverge from equilibrium on the million-year scale. O rogenesis reflects the balance of crustal material entering a mountain belt to undergo shortening and uplift versus material leaving the orogen through exhumation, erosion, and sediment transport (1-5). Perturbations in the influx/efflux from the orogen are expected to result in predictable changes in deformation within the orogen as it attempts to reestablish equilibrium (3). The long-term sink for sediment transported out of mountain belts is often in the deep sea, particularly in large submarine fans where sediments accumulate at anomalously high rates (>10 cm/ky) compared with deep-sea pelagic sedimentation (6-8). Even higher sedimentation rates (>100 cm/ky) proximal to glacially eroded regions (9-14) imply that wet-based glaciers are extremely efficient agents of erosion. Observations and modeling have argued that erosion rates can influence tectonic processes (15)(16)(17)(18)(19), but the timescales of adjustment, and the role of landscape disequilibrium, remain unclear. For example, exceptionally high local sedimentation rates (100-1000 cm/ky) recorded on the century timescale (13) SignificanceIn coastal Alaska and the St. Elias orogen, over the past 1.2 million years, mass flux leaving the mountains due to glacial erosion exceeds the plate tectonic input. This...

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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.