Holocene variability of the Kuroshio Current in the Okinawa Trough, northwestern Paci¢c Ocean Zhimin Jian a;c ; *, Pinxian Wang a , Yoshiki Saito b , Jiliang Wang a , Uwe P£aumann c , Tadamichi Oba d , Xinrong Cheng a a Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China b Marine Geology Department, Geological Survey of Japan, Higashi 1-1-3, Tsukuba 305, Japan c Institut fu «r Geowissenschaften, Universita «t Kiel, D-24118 Kiel, Germany d Graduate School of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060, Japan Received 26 April 2000; received in revised form 23 October 2000; accepted 25 October 2000 Abstract Cores 255 and B-3GC from the southern and northern Okinawa Trough, respectively, were studied for determining the variability of the Kuroshio Current on centennial scales during the Holocene based on detailed AMS 14 C dates, stable isotope, and planktonic foraminiferal distribution. The main flow of the Kuroshio Current was inferred to re- enter the Okinawa Trough at V7.3 calendar (cal.) kyr BP, leading to abrupt changes in sedimentation rate, remarkably increased abundance of the Kuroshio Current indicator Pulleniatina obliquiloculata, increased sea surface temperature (SST) and depth of thermocline (DOT). During V4.6^2.7 cal. kyr BP, the abundance of P. obliquiloculata sharply decreased, corresponding to a decreases in SST and DOT, implying that the influence of the Kuroshio Current weakened at that time, possibly as a result of the intensified winter monsoon. Significantly, the Kuroshio Current proxies (e.g. the difference in SST between the southern and northern Okinawa Trough) display periodicities of V1500 yr and V700^800 yr (ascribed to the second harmonic of the 1500 yr cycle in oceanic thermohaline circulation) during the Holocene. The Holocene events (at V0.6, 1.7, 3.3, 4.6, 5.9, 8.1, 9.4 cal. kyr BP) in the Okinawa Trough appear to be the most recent manifestation of the millennial scale climate cycle, recorded in the North Atlantic, Arabian Sea marine sediment cores and Greenland ice cores, suggesting global climatic tele-connections. ß 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Kuroshio; sea-surface temperature; Foraminifera; stable isotopes; Holocene; Okinawa Trough 1. Introduction The Kuroshio Current originates from the North Equatorial Current in the western Paci¢c, and carries warm and saline water £owing east of Taiwan and entering the Okinawa Trough to- wards the north. Its main axis is in the area of strongest heat exchange between sea and atmos- phere in the western Paci¢c, strongly in£uencing the East Asian climate, upper-ocean thermal structure and distribution of marine sediments in this region [1,2]. Changes in the Kuroshio Current during the late Quaternary, especially since the 0012-821X / 00 / $ ^ see front matter ß 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0012-821X(00)00321-6 * Corresponding author. Present address: Institut fu «r Geo- wissenschaften, Universita «t Kiel, D-24118 Kiel, Germany. Fax : +49-431-8804376; E-mail : zj@gpi.uni-kiel.de Earth and Planetary Science Letters 184 (2000) 305^319 www.elsevier.com/locate/epsl