Ultra-high-resolution fatty acid data of sediment core MFM09-A5-UR from Lake Meerfelder Maar

The Younger Dryas was the final cold phase during the last deglaciation; it started with an abrupt cooling in the Northern Hemisphere within just a few years. However, the regional patterns of Younger Dryas cooling in the North Atlantic realm were complex and mechanistically not fully understood. We present sub-annually resolved fatty acid data from Meerfelder Maar covering the Allerød-Younger Dryas transition to revel forcing mechanisms behind the time-transgressive Younger Dryas cooling across the North Atlantic realm. Data were generated using Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI) on 65 cm long section from the MFM09-A5-UR core. MSI was performed using a 7T solarix XR Fourier transform-ion cyclotron resonance-mass spectrometer (FT-ICR-MS) coupled to a matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) source equipped with a Smartbeam II laser (Bruker Daltonik, Bremen, Germany). We used average chain length (ACL) of long-chain fatty acids (C24, C26, C28) and three terrestrial aquatic ratios (TARs; TAR based on C26 and C16 (TAR=C26/(C26+C16)), TAR based on C24 and C16 (TARC24/(C24+C16)) and TAR based on C28, C26, C24, C16 and C14 (TAR(C24+C26+C28)/(C24+C26+C28+C14+C16)) fatty acids). Moreover, we present ACL based on gas chromatography data and stable carbon isotopes data from individual fatty acids (δ13C of C16, C24, C26, C28 and bishomohopanoic acid (δ13CBA)) from the same section in a lower resolution as supporting data.