Turnover of corals and reef ecosystems during the Early Cenozoic hyperthermal events, with a focus on the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (~56 Ma) ...
The early Cenozoic was a time of major environmental and evolutionary change, especially for shallow water carbonate ecosystems. Of particular importance is the major global carbon-cycle perturbation known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) that occurred approximately 56 million years ag...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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The University of Texas at Austin
2019
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| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.26153/tsw/2442 https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/75337 |
| Summary: | The early Cenozoic was a time of major environmental and evolutionary change, especially for shallow water carbonate ecosystems. Of particular importance is the major global carbon-cycle perturbation known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) that occurred approximately 56 million years ago. The release of greenhouse gasses in the late Paleocene and early Eocene led to increased temperatures, ocean acidification, as well as increased weathering in coastal environments. On carbonate platforms globally, Paleocene coral patch-reefs were replaced by non-metazoan reef-builders by the early Eocene. In spite of apparently inhospitable conditions and a phase-shift in reef-building taxa, there was no major mass extinction of shallow benthic taxa (e.g. corals and large benthic foraminifera) on carbonate platforms. The goals of this research are to understand how climate and environmental change in the early Cenozoic impacted diversity and structure of reefs, and how reef-dwellers were able to survive. This ... |
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