EARTH SYSTEM & CLIMATE: PALEOCENE CLIMATE 2014

Stable isotope evidence for Paleocene climate and environmental change

CHARLIE KENZIE
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE
Sent 28
th
April 2014

ABSTRACT
Deep marine carbonate data was collected near to the coast of Australia. Oxygen and carbon
isotopes were taken from the samples, and analyzed so to provide proxies on climate throughout the
Paleocene. Temperature corrected oxygen isotopes suggest that sea ice may have existed in the
early Paleocene, but that the vast majority of the Paleocene was ice-free. Temperatures are shown to
gradually increase throughout the Paleocene, and in contrast to previous studies, carbon isotopes are
shown to increase synonymously with temperature, with the exception of a cooling period in the
early-late Paleocene. This is attributed to the several phases of volcanic degassing from large
igneous provinces, which outstripped increased ocean productivity and resulted in rising CO
2

levels. This suggests that volcanic degassing at this time was significant, and a major control on
Earths climate. Additionally, carbon isotopes are shown not to recover until approximately 1.5Ma
after a hypothesized bolide impact event at the K-Pg boundary. The long recovery time of ocean
productivity suggests that biotas across the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary experienced a two-
stranded extinction, by which a more gradual extinction took place unrelated to an impact event at
the K-Pg boundary. Spectral analysis reveals periodicities in the data that cannot be attributed to
orbital forcing. However, the pattern indicates the significance of feedback effects, which can
heavily influence short-term climate. One limitation is that the data is of too lower resolution to be
able to satisfactorily resolve short-term climate changes within the limits of justifiable uncertainty.

1. Introduction
The Paleocene epoch, which follows the upper cretaceous and precedes the Eocene, occupies a
timescale from approximately 66-55 Ma before present. The boundary between the Cretaceous and
the Palaeocene (K-Pg) is marked clearly in the fossil record, and is also palpable by anomalously
CHARLIE KENZIE

high iridium levels and ejecta deposits. This dramatic change in the paleorecord coincides with the
mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous. Climatic and environemtnal changes during the
Palaeocene are often indicated by the use of stable isotopes in sediment sections and also data from
foraminifera and fossilised vegetation. Climate change inferred from the above constraints,
generally suggest a relatively cooler early Palaeocene, and warming towards the late Palaeocene.
The end of the Palaeocene is dominated by significant and extreme rises in global temperature and
oceanic carbon levels, and is often termed the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Although the
trends of isotopic data, environment and climate are explored up to Eocene boundary, a distinct
treatise on the PETM is not within the limits of this paper.

There has been much debate over the causes of the K-Pg extinction event, and paleoclimate at the
boundary has been well studied. However, to my knowledge, more detailed investigations of
Earths environment during the whole of the Paleocene are less documented. This short paper
intends to investigate whether the effects of the extinction event can be observed in the early
Paleocene, and thus giving clues as to the nature of the extinction since longer-term effects would
count against the theory of a bolide impact. Marine carbonate data from Australia will be used to
infer paleoclimate in more detail for the whole of the Paleocene, and the results will be compared to
exisiting scientific literature.


2. Methods
Isotopic compositions have long been used to infer past climate. Oxygen isotopic compositions of
marine carbonates can be used to infer temperature due to the temperature dependent fractionation
of oxygen isotopes between seawater and calcite. Changes in !
18
O can be used to indicate when the
world was glaciated by assuming, that when bottom waters are cold and frigid, this is sufficient to
support large ice sheets (Miller et al. 1987). !
18
O can be corrected for Paleotemperature utilizing:
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!
T C ( ) = 16.9 " 4.2 #
c
"#
w
( )
+0.13 #
c
"#
w
( )
2

where T is the paleotemperature, !
w
is the global seawater composition, and !
c
is the measured value
in calcite (Anderson 1983). Since previous studies have shown that the extent of ice in the
Paleocene was limited, an assumed value of !
w
= -1.2 is reasonable (Tripati et al. 2001; Miller et
al. 1987). Deep marine carbonate data was collected off the coast of Australia and corrected to infer
paleotemperature (Fig. 1b). Carbon isotope data was also taken from the same marine sample, and
can be used to indicate productivity and anoxia of oceans, and thus to some extent, the amount of
CO
2
in the atmosphere. Subsequently, both of these isotopes can be used as sensitive indicators of
global climate.

3. Results
3.1 Carbon Isotope Trend
The overall trend of the marine data shows an increase in !
13
C through the early Paleocene, with a
subsequent slight fall in the middle Paleocene between 62-60Ma, and then, a continued increase
through to the late Paleocene. The general trend is easily visible on a 3-point moving average plot
(Fig.2a). The overall trend is sequentially broken by a number of smaller peaks and troughs, more
dramatically throughout the middle Paleocene, and to a lesser extent in the late Paleocene. To
investigate the periodicity of the data, a simple spectral analysis tool was utilized (Fig.3b). The
computation resulted in a main positive peak corresponding to around 5Ma, and a second, smaller
peak, corresponding to a periodicity of around 2.5 Ma.
3.2 Oxygen Isotope Trend
The overall trend shows an initial decrease in !
18
O in the early Paleocene, succeeded by a flattening
of oxygen isotopes in the middle Palecoene, followed by a slight increase in the early-late
Paleocene, and a final dramatic decrease in the late-late Paleoceene. A 3-point moving average
shows this general trend in Fig.2b. The temperature corrected oxygen isotope data displays the
same trend, but inversed, an obvious outcome when assuming warmer temperatures correspond to a
CHARLIE KENZIE

higher ratio of
18
O left in water. The temperature corrections are first computed assuming an ice
free world during the Paleocene T1, employing a value of !
w
= -1.2. To compare the results with
an upper boundary, a second temperature computation T2 is carried out using a value of
!
w
= -0.28, which corresponds to todays amount of sea ice (Miller et al. 1987). The trend is the
same, as would be expected, but the calculated temperatures are warmer using the modern seawater
ratio. Since, average seawater temperatures below 2C could result in waters frigid enough to
maintain sea ice, a line at 2C is drawn across the graph, and shows that ice sheets may have existed
in the early Paleocene when assuming an ice free value of !
w
. Simple spectral analysis was also
computed for the oxygen data, and the results show a similar single large peak corresponding to a
periodicity of around 6 Ma, and a second peak corresponding to a periodicity of around 1.8 Ma
(Fig.3a). Spectral analysis of both data sets, reveal similar dominant periodicities in both, and
possibly indicating the mutual relationship of the two proxies. This is further highlighted when
eyeballing Fig.1a, and more quantitatively, when the two isotope proxies are plotted against each
other (Fig.2c). The plot calculates a correlation coefficient of -0.5386, which when compared using
a table of pearson product-moment correlation coefficients, lies within a 0.02 significance level, or
98% significance.

4. Discussion
Previous studies have recorded a significant drop in !
13
C isotopes at the K-Pg boundary, which goes
some way to explain the low !
13
C levels observed in the Australian marine data in the early
Paleocene. The causes of the extinction are debated, but the most accepted theory links a bolide
impact at around 66 Ma to the decline. Despite the debate, the effect of the K-Pg extinction event is
thought by most, to at least some extent, to have caused a lowering in ocean productivity in the
early Paleocene, and to have brought about a sterile dead ocean named the Strangelove ocean
(Hsu & McKenzie 1985). The marine carbonates from Australia show a small trough at around 65
Ma, corresponding to the sterile conditions caused by extinction, and furthermore, highlight that
CHARLIE KENZIE

!
13
C levels did not start to recover until after 65-65.5 Ma, 1 1.5 Ma after the proposed impact
event at the K-Pg boundary. These observations, which agree with previous studies (Arthur et al.
1987), suggest that low productivity lasted for as long as 1.5 Ma, which is a very long time for the
environment to be effected by a single impact event. This may have important implications about
the mechanisms behind extinction, and the length of recovery indicated by the !
13
C isotope data,
may support a two-stranded extinction, by which a more gradual extinction took place unrelated to
an impact event at the K-Pg boundary.

The Strangelove conditions after the K-Pg extinction event resulted in sluggish oceanic and
atmospheric circulation, leading to slightly cooler temperatures in the early Paleocene. Previous
studies have revealed very little evidence for permanent ice sheets. However, temperature corrected
!
18
O, with a seawater composition of !
w
= -1.2, shows that at very short intervals during the early
Paleocene, it may have been possible to sustain ice sheets. Furthermore, Paleocene aged clasts of
fine-shales were found on Spisbergen (Arctic Norway), and interpreted as ice-raft deposits (Dallan
1977), supporting the possibility of sea-ice in the early Paleocene. However, if a seawater
composition comparable to a modern day value is used (!
w
= -0.4), then the temperature corrected
data indicates that ice could not be sustained at any time during the Paleocene, and considering the
limited resolution of the isotope data, the presence of sea-ice during the early Paleocene remains
ambiguous. Despite this, the temperature corrected !
18
O data indicates significant enough climate
warming to indicate that no ice sheets existed throughout the majority of the Paleocene.

After the significantly low levels of carbon isotopes in the early Paleocene, !
13
C rises steadily
throughout much of the remainder of the Paleocene to a large peak (3.5) in the late Paleocene;
some of the highest levels observed for the whole of the Cenozoic (Charisi & Schimtz 1994;
Shackleton 1986; Stott & Kennett 1989, 1990). The steady increase is attributed to an amplified
oxygen minimum zone, emanating from enhanced biological productivity and associated with
CHARLIE KENZIE

elevated organic-carbon accumulation rates. These observations are supported by previous studies,
which suggest that both planktonic and benthic !
13
C values increased to the same extent, and thus
indicating that organic
12
C was revoked from the ocean system through burial as organic rich shale
or coals.

This study, amongst others (Shackleton 1986; Stott & Kennet 1990, 1991; Westerhold et al. 2011),
indicates that oceans may have cooled during high !
13
C periods, for example during the early-late
Paleocene (59.5-57.5 Ma). This agrees with a generally accepted correlation, that an increase in
!
13
C isotopes suggests a cooler climate, since more productive oceans would lead to less
atmospheric CO
2
, and thus, cooler temperatures. However, in contrast to previous work, the marine
data in this study show a strong negative correlation between oxygen and carbon isotopes, and with
the exception of the cool period in the early-late Paleocene, show that !
13
C increases synonymously
with temperature. I propose that this anomaly is caused by the significant effects of various stages
of volcanic de-gassing from large igneous provinces (LIPs). Eruptions were extensive enough such
that any decrease in atmospheric CO
2
, caused by increasing ocean productivity, was outstripped by
the addition of CO
2
from de-gassing. Extended periods of de-gassing from LIPs are shown on
Fig.1b. It is clear that warming occurred over periods that either directly followed, or were
synonymous with, major eruptive phases. Since the early-late Paleocene is not synchronised with
any eruptive phase, it is plausible that the effects of volcanic CO
2
were negligible at this time, such
that increasing ocean productivity (shown by a continued increase in !
13
C) could now cause a fall in
atmospheric CO
2
over this period, and thus leading to a fall in temperature. Towards the late-late
Paleocene however, another LIP eruptive phase began, and the addition of CO
2
outstripped that
which could be absorbed by the oceans, causing the temperature to rise. This has important
implications to the sensitivity of Earths climate to volcanic eruptions, and suggests a clear
mechanism behind the continued warming of the planet towards the late Paleocene and early
Eocene, despite steadily rising ocean productivity indicated by increased !
13
C isotopes.
CHARLIE KENZIE


The increase in temperature in the late Paleocene, is linked to other factors than just volcanic
degassing. During the late Paleoceene, hydrothermal activity introduced nutrient rich anoxic water,
and tectonic reorganisation increased ocean mixing (Vogt, 1979) (Fig.4). This resulted in warm
saline and oxygen-deficient deep water to mix with cold, nutrient-depleted waters at higher
latitudes, thus shifting the locus of ongoing deep-water formation from cold to warm waters, and
causing deep ocean water temperatures to rise dramatically. The lack of cooled near surface waters
emanating from polar regions allowed the penetration of warmed boundary currents to higher
latitudes (Boersma & Permoli-Silva 1983), and is likely to have contributed to a concurrent
warming temperature. These observations also agree with studies that suggest that a wide equatorial
belt of tropical rainforest extended to latitudes of about 50 throughout the late Paleocene (Frakes
et al. 1990), brought about by gradually warming oceanic temperatures and the opening of sea
gateways, which led to greater atmospheric circulation and more rainfall, fuelling rainforest
sustainability. Increased terrestrial rainfall towards the end of the Paleocene may also have
increased eutrophication and explain the continued positive !
13
C excursion in the late Paleocene,
and goes some way to explain the demise of the Paleocene deep-sea fauna, a commonly measured
biotic crisis (Miller et al. 1987; Kennett & Stott 1990, 1991; Vogt 1979).

Spectral analysis reveals a dominant 5-6 Ma periodicity in the !
13
C and !
18
O isotopes. Periodic
slow excursions superimposed on the long-term trend of the isotopes, show swings of around 2 Ma.
This is in contrast to previous studies, which have found superimposed periods of short-term 100kyr
and 405kyr cycles (Charisi & Schmitz 1994; Westerhold et al. 2011), clearly indicating orbital
forcing. The absence of orbital forcing in this study is explained by the comparably low resolution
of the data, making it impossible to determine short-term time periods. To this end, it is equally
difficult to attribute the sudden changes in the data to smaller hypothermals or more subtle changes
in environment causing differing isotope ratios. However, the sawtooth pattern of the data does
CHARLIE KENZIE

indicate the presence of non-linear feedback effects, such as vegetation growth, mountain
building or changes in ocean circulation, which have been found in many studies as an important
control on paleoclimate. This perhaps highlights a common ambiguity of reconstructing
paleoenvironments, in that proxies are often of too lower resolution, or have a locality spacing that
is too far spread, to provide a constraint on environment over short timescales. However, proxies
used over longer time scales, as has been done in this study, can provide constraints on
environmental change within the limits of justifiable uncertainty.

One further problem with reconstructing past climate is the possibility of non-linear interplay
between different limitation factors of the observably proxy information, and the possibility of non-
stationary proxy-climate regimes, which give rise to ambiguity and many uncertainties (Bothe &
Zanchettin 2013). To combat this, in this study !
13
C data is compared with !
18
O data. On the other
hand, the assumption that they are mutually related may cause further complication and ambiguity.
In spite of this, several other studies have linked the combined use of these proxies to paleoclimate,
and the correlation found between the two proxies in this study is significant (within 98%
signifcance). Another complication with using marine carbonate data is that one has to assume that
post-depositional diagnetic recrystallisation has not changed the carbonates original isotopic
composition. Quantitative corrections for diagenisis require analytical procedures out of the limits
of this paper. Nevertheless, it has been found that carbonates precipitated in high-latitude oceans,
such as those near Australia, experienced very little rapid re-crystallisation due to diagenisis
(Schrag et al. 1995).

5. Conclusions
Carbon isotopes in the early Paleocene are not shown to recover until approximately 1.5Ma after a
hypothesized bolide impact event at the K-Pg boundary, which seems a long time for oceans to
recover after a single event, and suggests that biotas across the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary
CHARLIE KENZIE

experienced a two-stranded extinction, by which a more gradual extinction took place unrelated to
an impact event at the K-Pg boundary. Temperature corrected oxygen isotopes suggest that sea ice
may have existed in the early Paleocene, however this remains ambiguous. Nonetheless, the data
show that temperatures would have been much too high for ice to be sustained for the vast majority
of the Paleocene. Temperature increases throughout the Paleocene seem to coincide with eruptive
episodes from large igneous provinces. A short cooling period in the early-late Paleocene is not
synchronous with an eruptive phase, and increasing ocean productivity caused a fall in atmospheric
CO
2
over this period, thus leading to a fall in temperature. This suggests that volcanic degassing at
this time was significant, and a major control on Earths climate. Generally increasing temperatures
towards the late Paleocene coincide with changing ocean-water sources brought about by increased
ocean mixing, hydrothermal activity and ocean anoxia. Spectral analysis reveals periodicities in the
data that cannot be attributed to orbital forcing. However, the pattern indicates the significance of
feedback effects, which can heavily influence short-term climate. One limitation is that the data is
of too lower resolution to be able to satisfactorily resolve short-term climate changes within the
limits of justifiable uncertainty.

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Evolution of Cretaceous Ocean/Climate Systems, Geological Society of America Special
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CHARLIE KENZIE



Possibly Ice Free
Possible Ice Sheets
Figure1a Deep marine carbonate oxygen (solid line) and
carbon (dashed line) isotopes. Show a broadly negative
correlation. Note how d13C does not start recver until
approximately 65Ma, 1.5Ma after a hypothesized bolide
impact event. Figure 1b Temperature corrected oxygen
isotope data. T1 (solid line) shows temperature corrected
assuming a seawater composition of an ice-free globe. T2
(dashed line) uses a present day seawater composition.
Dotted line shows the possibly boundary for ice to be
sustained. Only plausible for the very early Paleocene.
Figure 2a-2b 3-point moving
averages of carbon and oxygen data
respectively, showing general trends
over time. Figure 2c cross-plot of
oxygen and carbon isotope data,
showing a strong negative
correlation between the two.
a
b
a
b
c
Figure 3a Spectral analysis of oxygen isotope data, showing a dominant
frequency corresponding to a period of around 6Ma, and a smaller peak
corresponding to 1.8 Ma. Figure 3b Spectral analysis of carbon isotope
data, showing a similar single dominant peak corresponding to a period
of around 5 Ma.
Figure 4 Paleographic map of the
Early Paleocene 65Ma before
present (Hay et al. 1999).