Sortable silt and fine sediment size/composition slicing: Parameters for palaeocurrent speed and palaeoceanography

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Abstract
Fine sediment size (KM), regions of high eddy kinetic energy (KE) must be avoided. At the present, such abyssal regions lie under the high surface KE of major current systems: Gulf Stream, Kuroshio, Agulhas, Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and Brazil/Falkland currents in the Argentine Basin. This is probably a satisfactory guide for the Pleistocene. With regard to the carbonate subfraction of the size spectrum, size modes due to both coccoliths and foraminiferal fragments can be recognized and analyzed, with the boundary between them again at about 10 µm. The flux of less than 10 µm carbonate, at pelagic sites above the lysocline, is another candidate for a productivity indicator.