On Thursday, March 21, Jorge Valdés, researcher at the University of Antofagasta (Chile), presented, as part of the Café con Sal series, the talk “Variabilidad climática y recursos pesqueros en el sistema de Humboldt: Una mirada hacia el pasado desde el registro sedimentario”.
Marine environments low in oxygen and with high rates of sedimentation and primary productivity preserve information about past ocean-climate variations. The Humboldt Current system is an example, as the large population of pelagic fish it hosts (mainly sardine and anchovy) is preserved in the seafloor sediments, and can be used as indicators of past environmental changes.
Different studies show that Mejillones Bay (23ºS, Northern Chile) has a well-preserved sedimentary record that reflects fluctuations of pelagic fish over the last millennium (mainly sardine and anchovy), which demonstrate the impact of the fishing industry and validate the use of these fish remains as markers of fish abundance at the local scale.
During his lecture, Jorge Valdés presented the fluctuations observed in sardine and anchovy over the last millennium, relating the successive cycles of increase and decrease of these species to temperature cycles, subsurface oxygen, primary productivity, and other ocean-climatic variables such as the interdecadal variability associated with the “El Niño” phenomenon.
The results presented are part of the work carried out at the International Joint Laboratory (LMI) under the PALEOTRACES project, which involves the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (France), the Fluminense Federal University (Brazil), the Cayetano Heredia University (Peru), and the University of Antofagasta (Chile).
The conference took place at 11:00 a.m. in the Assembly Hall of ECIMAT and was broadcast live at http://tv.uvigo.es/es/directo/1.html, and is permanently available on UVigoTV and in the section of past conferences on our website (https://cim.uvigo.gal/divulgacion/cafe-con-sal/).
