Extracting foraminiferal seawater Nd isotope signatures from bulk deep sea sediment by chemical leaching

The seawater radiogenic neodymium (143Nd/144Nd) isotope signature is an invaluable tool for the reconstruction of past deep water provenance. Sedimentary foraminifera or fish teeth are among the most reliable archives known for Nd isotope based reconstructions of past seawater. As the distribution and preservation of these archives are limited, the extraction of hydrogenetic ferromanganese oxyhydroxides from bulk sediments provide an easily applicable alternative. This method, however, implies the risk of generating artefacts due to the possible release of non-seawater derived Nd during the extraction procedure. Here we revisit and further investigate the reliability of the extraction of seawater derived Nd isotope signatures via leaching of bulk deep sea sediments with two commonly used buffered acetic acid and acid-reductive mix solutions. Repeated application of such stepwise leaching procedures to different non-decarbonated sediments from distinct settings across the deep Atlantic Ocean shows pronounced elemental and Nd isotope trends during the leaching process in the laboratory. Our results show that seawater Nd isotope compositions are extracted together with carbonates and manganese oxides only at the beginning of the leaching series. During chemical extraction, the carbonates effectively work as a buffer preventing acid-induced mobilisation of Fe oxides and volcanogenic material. Once this buffer is consumed, potentially present volcanogenic phases are considerably attacked, leading to shifts in the extracted Nd isotope signal of up to + 12 epsilon units. Such volcanogenic phases are a significant source of contaminant Nd reflected by markedly elevated Al/Nd signatures. We consequently propose a revised weak leaching protocol for carbonate bearing deep sea sediments, which is simple to use, provides excellent agreement with data obtained from uncleaned foraminifera, and can be easily screened for contamination.