Basin-scale controls on the molybdenum-isotope composition of seawater during Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 (Late Cretaceous)

Abstract

It is well established that the burial of organic carbon in marine sediments increased dramatically at a global scale at the Cenomanian–Turonian boundary (Oceanic Anoxic Event 2: OAE-2, ∼94Myr ago, Late Cretaceous). Many localities containing chemostratigraphic expressions of this event are not, however, enriched in organic carbon, and point to a heterogeneous set of oceanographic and environmental processes operating in different ocean basins. These processes are difficult to reconstruct because of the uneven geographical distribution of sites recording OAE-2, thus limiting our understanding of the causes and palaeoceanographic consequences of the environmental changes that occurred at this time. A new, highly resolved molybdenum-isotope dataset is presented from the Cape Verde Basin (southern proto-North Atlantic Ocean) and a lower resolution record from the Tarfaya Basin, Morocco. The new data reveal periodic oscillations in the Mo-isotope composition of proto-North Atlantic Ocean sediments, from which coupled changes in the dissolved sulphide concentration and Mo inventories of the basin seawater can be inferred. The cyclic variations in sedimentary Mo-isotope compositions can be hypothetically linked to regional changes in the depth of the chemocline, and in the rate of seawater exchange between basinal waters and global seawater. The new data suggest that a global seawater Mo-isotope composition of ∼1.2‰ was reached very soon after the onset of OAE-2, implying a rapid expansion of marine deoxygenation coeval with, or slightly preceding, enhanced global rates of organic-carbon burial. During OAE-2, the modelled flux of Mo into anoxic sediments is likely to have been ∼60–125 times greater than at the present day, although the spatial extent of anoxia is unlikely to have been greater than 10% of the total seafloor.