Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and the Opening of the Northeast Atlantic

• Published in: Science
• Main Authors: Storey, Michael, Duncan, Robert A., Swisher, Carl C.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2007
• Subjects: Greenland; East Greenland; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1135274; https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.1135274

The Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) has been attributed to a sudden release of carbon dioxide and/or methane. 40 Ar/ 39 Ar age determinations show that the Danish Ash-17 deposit, which overlies the PETM by about 450,000 years in the Atlantic, and the Skraenterne Formation Tuff, representing the end of 1 ± 0.5 million years of massive volcanism in East Greenland, are coeval. The relative age of Danish Ash-17 thus places the PETM onset after the beginning of massive flood basalt volcanism at 56.1 ± 0.4 million years ago but within error of the estimated continental breakup time of 55.5 ± 0.3 million years ago, marked by the eruption of mid-ocean ridge basalt–like flows. These correlations support the view that the PETM was triggered by greenhouse gas release during magma interaction with basin-filling carbon-rich sedimentary rocks proximal to the embryonic plate boundary between Greenland and Europe.