Abstract
The Paleocene-Eocene transition was a time of short-term rapid climatic and biotic change, superimposed on a long-term warming trend. The response of shallow tropical carbonate systems to past rapid warming is important to understand in the context of ongoing and future anthropogenic global warming. Larger benthic foraminifera (LBF) were abundant and important components of shallow water ecosystems throughout the early Paleogene and are sensitive to environmental change, making them ideal organisms to track shallow marine biodiversity. Furthermore, through the use of integrated bio- and chemostratigraphy it is possible to correlate the shallow (<100 m) and deep water realms to create a regional stratigraphic framework for the time period. Here we present a new LBF biostratigraphic and high-resolution carbonate carbon isotopic record spanning the Paleocene-Eocene transition from the onshore sub-surface of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Results show a turnover event in the LBF assemblage during the early Eocene, wherein there are a number of first and last occurrences of species. However, assemblages remain generally stable coincident with the large negative carbon isotope excursion interpreted to be the onset of the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM). Turnover in the LBF assemblage in the early Eocene likely occurred due to the crossing of a long-term climatic and oceanographic threshold. The impacts of this long-term climatic change on the overall biotic assemblage at this site are significant, with LBF outcompeting a previously diverse community of corals, gastropods, and bivalves to become the dominant carbonate producers through the Paleocene-Eocene transition. Despite this, modern studies suggest that LBF are not immune to impacts of anthropogenic climate change, perhaps due to the significantly higher rates of change in the modern compared to the Paleocene-Eocene transition.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 79-106 |
Number of pages | 28 |
Journal | Newsletters on Stratigraphy |
Volume | 54 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 22 Jan 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We would like to thank Flavia Boscolo-Galazzo, Johannes Pignatti and Cesare Papazzoni for providing expertise and advice when identifying the smaller benthic and larger benthic foraminifera assemblages and for their further input on the ecological significance of the assemblages. We also thank Steve Pendray for preparing penological thin sections. We are very appreciative of the two anonymous reviewers who helped to improve the manuscript with detailed comments. We acknowledge Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) for access to core material and permission to publish data based upon interpretations and analysis of this material. The research contained in this publication contains work conducted during a PhD study undertaken as part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Centre for Doctoral Training in Oil & Gas (grant number NE/M00578X/1) and is fully funded by NERC whose support is gratefully acknowledged. AS thanks the European Research Council for Consolidator Grant 771497.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors.
Funding
We would like to thank Flavia Boscolo-Galazzo, Johannes Pignatti and Cesare Papazzoni for providing expertise and advice when identifying the smaller benthic and larger benthic foraminifera assemblages and for their further input on the ecological significance of the assemblages. We also thank Steve Pendray for preparing penological thin sections. We are very appreciative of the two anonymous reviewers who helped to improve the manuscript with detailed comments. We acknowledge Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) for access to core material and permission to publish data based upon interpretations and analysis of this material. The research contained in this publication contains work conducted during a PhD study undertaken as part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Centre for Doctoral Training in Oil & Gas (grant number NE/M00578X/1) and is fully funded by NERC whose support is gratefully acknowledged. AS thanks the European Research Council for Consolidator Grant 771497.
Keywords
- Biodiversity
- Carbonates
- Larger benthic foraminifera
- Palaeoenvironment
- Paleogene
- PETM
- Shallow marine