Dataset: Sea-level and monsoonal control on the Maldives carbonate platform (Indian Ocean) over the last 1.3 million years

Datasets used in the article "Sea-level and monsoonal control on the Maldives carbonate platform (Indian Ocean) over the last 1.3 million years" by M. Alonso-Garcia et al. (2023)

In this study, we used elemental geochemical compositional records, obtained by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) core-scanning, from IODP Site U1467, in the Maldives Sea (Indian Ocean), to investigate how sea-level and coupled ocean-atmosphere dynamics affected the production and export of carbonate platform sediments to the Maldives Inner Sea over the last 1.3 Ma. The Sr/Ca ratio has been interpreted as a proxy for neritic carbonate production at the Maldives platform and its export to the periplatform sediments. The record of the Sr/Ca ratio has been combined with the Br normalized record, as a proxy for organic matter content linked to pelagic primary productivity and water column mixing, and with other proxies from Site U1467 that indicate variations in the monsoon dynamics, such as the Fe/K ratio, as a proxy for summer monsoon intensity, and the Fe input for winter monsoon intensity (Kunkelova et al., 2018). The combination of all those proxies suggests that during the last 1.3 Ma changes in the carbonate production and export in the Maldives region responded to sea-level variations but also to climate fluctuations related to monsoon dynamics. Moreover, the long-term patterns observed in the records can be related to the MPT and MBE events.