C-Isotope stratigraphy, a monitor of paleoenvironmental change: A case study from the early cretaceous

Abstract

Today's disturbance of the global carbon cycle induced by anthropogenic processes has raised new interest in the history of the global carbon cycle and its relationship to climate and other geochemical cycles. Carbon-isotope stratigraphy proves to be most useful as a monitor of the history of the carbon-cycle during the last 200 million years. In the introductory paragraphs of this review the mode of functioning of the global carbon-cycle is summarized and the connection between carbon-cycle and carbon isotope geochemistry is documented. A case study on the disturbance of the global carbon cycle during the Aptian-Albian is presented. The disturbance of the carbon cycle lasting up to millions of years is recorded in the carbon-isotope stratigraphy of pelagic sediments. It is superimposed on high frequency sedimentological cycles, related to climate and oceanographic cycles of 20, 40 or 100 ky duration. The data reviewed suggest that the change in the global carbon system was linked to a global acceleration of geochemical cycles triggered by a long-term change in atmospheric CO2 controlled by the rate of sea-floor formation and by volcanic activity. Increased accumulation rates of terrestrial material and terrestrial organic matter in marine sediments may be used as an indicator of an intensified hydrological cycling resulting in higher water-discharge rates. An intensification of the Aptian-Albian water cycle is further reflected in continental sediments monitoring a period of elevated humidity. An increase in water discharge rates should have affected the transfer rate of dissolved nutrients from continents to oceans. Elevated concentrations of phosphorus may have led to an increase in Aptian-Albian oceanic productivity enhancing the transfer of marine organic matter from the oceanic into the sedimentary reservoir. Increased productivity, increased bulk sedimentation rates and poorly oxygenated deep-water led to increased preservation of marine and terrestrial organic matter in marine sediments. The accelerated output of marine organic carbon from the oceanic reservoir is ultimately registered in the positive carbon-isotope excursion of the marine carbonate carbon-isotope stratigraphy.