Secular Variations in Provenance of Sedimentary Components in the Western North Pacific Ocean Constrained by Sr Isotopic Features of Deep‐Sea Sediments

Abstract

Abstract Deep‐sea sediments around Minamitorishima Island in the western North Pacific Ocean record the depositional environment in the central to western North Pacific since the late Cretaceous. Previous studies on the bulk chemical composition of deep‐sea sediments in this area have revealed that the sediment column can be divided into five chemostratigraphic units with at least three intercalated layers enriched in rare‐earth elements. However, the end‐member components and their changes in abundance, which indicate compositional variation, as well as the environmental factors affecting them, remain unclear. Here, we report the bulk chemistry, including newly analyzed 87Sr/86Sr ratios of the sediments, seafloor Mn nodules, and fish teeth collected from the deep‐sea basin around Minamitorishima Island, to identify the end‐member components of the sediments. Our results suggest that the pelagic sediments in the study area are mainly composed of terrigenous components, hydrogenous Mn oxides, biogenic calcium phosphate, and volcanic materials. The combination of Sr isotope modeling and bulk chemistry revealed that the input of volcanic materials has increased twice, which might be Izu‐Bonin‐Mariana tephras of the latest Eocene to Oligocene explosive volcanism at the later event but is unclear at the earlier event. The provenance of terrigenous materials has changed from North America to East Asia. The bulk sediment chemostratigraphy around Minamitorishima Island could have resulted not only from the local environmental changes in the pelagic realm, but also from volcanism around the Pacific Ocean and the northwestward movement of the area due to the Pacific plate motion.

Keywords

• pelagic clay
• Sr isotopes
• rare‐earth elements
• bulk chemical composition
• western North Pacific Ocean
• REY‐rich mud