Changes in Kuroshio Current since the last glacial maximum

Kuroshio Current is a strong ocean current that carries heat from low latitudes to mid latitudes, thus plays an important role in influencing the climate in the northwest Pacific, including Taiwan which is located right next to the path of the Kuroshio Current. Past changes of this mighty current have long been of interest to the scientific community in Taiwan. But the sedimentation rate off Taiwan is extremely high, thus to study changes spanning the last glacial cycle requires long sediment cores of tens of meters of length. We obtained several long cores in 2018, thanks to a Taiwan-France collaborative cruise on French research vessel Marion Dufresne. We will use the microfossils and biomarkers found in these sediment records to reconstruct past oceanographic conditions in the oceans east off Taiwan.