Palynology and sea surface temperature reconstruction for the mid-Cretaceous Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 at ODP Hole 210-1276A ...

• Main Authors: Sinninghe Damsté, Jaap S, van Bentum, Elisabeth C, Reichart, Gert-Jan, Pross, Jörg, Schouten, Stefan
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2012
• Subjects: Drilling/drill rig; Leg210; Joides Resolution; Ocean Drilling Program ODP; Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.786508; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.786508

The mid-Cretaceous is thought to be a greenhouse world with significantly higher atmospheric pCO2 and sea-surface temperatures as well as a much flatter latitudinal thermal gradient compared to the present. This time interval was punctuated by the Cenomanian/Turonian Oceanic Anoxic Event (OAE-2, ~ 93.5 Myr ago), an episode of global, massive organic carbon burial that likely resulted in a large and abrupt pCO2 decline. However, the climatic consequences of this pCO2 drop are yet poorly constrained. We determined the first, high-resolution sea-surface temperature (SST) record across OAE-2 from a deep-marine sedimentary sequence at Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 1276 in the mid-latitudinal Newfoundland Basin, NW Atlantic. By employing the organic palaeothermometer TEX86, we found that SSTs across the OAE-2 interval were extremely high, but were punctuated by a remarkably large cooling (5-11 °C), which is synchronous with the 2.5-5.5 °C cooling in SST records from equatorial Atlantic sites, and the "Plenus ... : Supplement to: Sinninghe Damsté, Jaap S; van Bentum, Elisabeth C; Reichart, Gert-Jan; Pross, Jörg; Schouten, Stefan (2010): A CO2 decrease-driven cooling and increased latitudinal temperature gradient during the mid-Cretaceous Oceanic Anoxic Event 2. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 293(1-2), 97-103 ...