Reference
Richey, J.N., Hollander, D.J., Flower, B.P. and Eglinton, T.I. 2011. Merging late Holocene molecular organic foraminiferal-based geochemical records of sea surface temperature in the Gulf of Mexico. Paleoceanography 26: 10.1029/2010PA002000.
Description
Working with TEX86 (TetraEther IndeX of tetraethers with 86 carbon atoms) data derived from information obtained from a sediment core extracted from the Northern Gulf of Mexico's Pigmy Basin (27°11.61'N, 91°24.54'W) in 2003 -- which data are "based on the relative abundance of isoprenoid glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) with varying numbers of cyclopentane moieties," which GDGTs are "membrane lipids biosynthesized by marine Crenarchaeota" -- and based on the fact that "the number of cyclopentane moieties in these crenarchaeotal membrane lipids has been observed to increase with increasing growth temperature," the four researchers developed an 1100-year SST record that revealed that the peak SST of the MWP (AD 900-1100) was approximately 0.8°C less than the peak warmth of the CWP.