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Announcements Please note the following special session at the Ocean Sciences Meeting, 26-30 January 2004, Portland Oregon. **Abstracts must be submitted to AGU by 16 October 2003, 1400 UTC** OS07 The truth about paleoceanographic proxies: What are they really telling us? Sediment proxies of ocean biology, chemistry and physics have the exiting potential to reveal the past response of the oceans to climate forcing. To date, nutrient utilization proxies (e.g. 15N, 13C, 30Si), productivity proxies (e.g. authigenic U, 230Th-normalized burial rates, 231Pa/230Th, excess Ba), circulation proxies (e.g. benthic foraminiferal 13C and Cd/Ca), temperature proxies (e.g. alkenones and Mg/Ca) and sea ice proxies (e.g. diatom assemblages) among others, have contributed some strong constraints on past ocean behavior. However, many of these proxies can also be misleading due to multiple confounding factors including 'vital effects'. Ideally, the identification of such 'artifacts' should lead to further refinement of the proxy, such that the artifact is exploited. For example, if cell size affects proxy X, then we potentially have a new proxy for cell size. A multi-proxy approach becomes all the more important in this case. In this session we welcome contributions that take a careful honest look at any existing or newly proposed paleoceanographic proxy. This could include laboratory studies of vital effects, sediment trap studies, core-top validations, evaluation of analytical methods, even modeling or theoretical studies. We also welcome down-core results presented in the context of understanding proxy behavior or studies that take a multi-proxy approach towards constraining possible scenarios. Conveners: Zanna Chase and Adina Paytan |