Lower Cretaceous C-isotope records show intermittent negative/positive spikes, and consistent patterns of coeval chemostratigraphic curves thus document shifts that signal simultaneous responses of temporal changes in the global carbon reservoir. The standard pattern registered by the δ 13Corg and δ 13Ccarb in Lower Aptian sediments includes distinct isotope segments C1 to C8 (Menegatti et al., 1998). In the El Pui section, Organya Basin, Spain, C-isotope segment C2 is the longest interval preceding segments C3–C6 associated with oceanic anoxic event 1a (OAE 1a), and reveals a distinct negative shift of ~1.8‰ to ~2.23‰ defining the C-isotope pattern within that interval. Total inorganic carbon (TIC), total organic carbon (TOC), δ 13Corg, microfacies, n-alkanes show no difference before, during, or after the negative inflection. The biomarkers indicate that organic matter (OM) mainly originates from algal/microbial sources because short-chain length homologues (≤nC19) dominate. nC20 through nC25 indicate some contribution from aquatic vegetation, but little from higher plants (>nC25), as also suggested by the terrestrial/aquatic ratio of n-alkanes or (TAR) = [(nC27+nC29+nC31)/(nC15+nC17+nC19)] (averages 0.085). We suggest that conjoint pulses of contemporaneous LIPs (Ontong Java) and massive explosive volcanism in northeast Asia, the Songliao Basin (SB-V), best conform to plausible causes of the negative intra-C2 carbon isotopic excursion (CIE) at that time. Because of its apparent common occurrence the intra-C2 inflection could be a useful marker harbinger to the more pronounced CIE C3, the hallmark of OAE1a.