| Session Details | |
| Section | BG - Biogeosciences |
| Session Title | Biomarker Proxies for Analyzing Marine and Terrestrial Environments and Ecosystems |
| Main Convener | Dr. Ken Sawada (Hokkaido University, Japan) |
| Co-convener(s) | Prof. Kyung-Hoon Shin (Hanyang University, Korea, South) Dr. Osamu Seki (Hokkaido University, Japan) Dr. Hideto Nakamura (Hokkaido University, Japan) |
| Session Description | Organic compounds preserved in particle in water column, sediment, rock, coal, petroleum and fossil provide a direct proxy of environmental, climatic and ecological conditions, and thus are important to geoscientific studies for present/past earth’s systems. Individual organic compounds, or their classes, preserved in geoscientific materials that can be traced to a specific source organism, or group of organisms are called ‘biomarkers’. In recent years, biomarker proxies have become increasingly utilized for present/past environmental reconstructions and have been used to address a wide range of research questions from analyzing present/past marine and terrestrial ecosystems and environments (e.g. analyzing water temperature, salinity, atmospheric CO2 concentration, vegetation, humidity/aridity and terrestrial input to ocean). For the last decade, biomarker geochemical researches remarkably increased in Asia, Oceania, western Pacific and Indian Ocean. The major target of this session is to discuss the applicability and reliability of biomarker proxies such as alkenone, GDGT and long chain diol in marine environment as well as plant wax, lignin and terpenoids in terrestrial environment, especially in Asia and Oceania areas, at the present, near past and deep time. In addition, we discuss to promote development of new or improved biomarker proxies for analyzing particular environments in Asian and Oceania. |