[1] Oceanic anoxic events (OAEs) record profound changes in the climatic and paleoceanographic state of the planet and represent major disturbances in the global carbon cycle. OAEs that manifestly caused major chemical change in the Mesozoic Ocean include those of the early Toarcian (Posidonienschiefer event, T-OAE, ∼183 Ma), early Aptian (Selli event, OAE 1a, ∼120 Ma), early Albian (Paquier event, OAE 1b, ∼111 Ma), and Cenomanian-Turonian (Bonarelli event, C/T OAE, OAE 2, ∼93 Ma). Currently available data suggest that the major forcing function behind OAEs was an abrupt rise in temperature, induced by rapid influx of CO 2 into the atmosphere from volcanogenic and/or methanogenic sources. Global warming was accompanied by an accelerated hydrological cycle, increased continental weathering, enhanced nutrient discharge to oceans and lakes, intensified upwelling, and an increase in organic productivity. Os ratios acting against, in the case of the Cenomanian-Turonian and early Aptian OAEs, a longer-term trend to less radiogenic values. This latter trend indicates that hydrothermally and volcanically sourced nutrients may also have stimulated local increases in organic productivity. Increased flux of organic matter favored intense oxygen demand in the water column, as well as increased rates of marine and lacustrine carbon burial. Particularly in those restricted oceans and seaways where density stratification was favored by paleogeography and significant fluvial input, conditions could readily evolve from poorly oxygenated to anoxic and ultimately euxinic (i.e., sulfidic), this latter state being geochemically the most significant. The progressive evolution in redox conditions through phases of denitrification/anammox, through to sulfate reduction accompanied by water column precipitation of pyrite framboids, resulted in fractionation of many isotope systems (e.g., N, S, Fe, Mo, and U) and mobilization and incorporation of certain trace elements into carbonates (Mn), sulfides, and organic matter. Sequestration of CO 2 in organic-rich black shales and by reaction with silicate rocks exposed on continents would ultimately restore climatic equilibrium but at the expense of massive chemical change in the oceans and over time scales of tens to hundreds of thousands of years.Components: 20,549 words, 8 figures.

In the Jurassic period, the Early Toarcian oceanic anoxic event (about 183 million years ago) is associated with exceptionally high rates of organic-carbon burial, high palaeotemperatures and significant mass extinction. Heavy carbon-isotope compositions in rocks and fossils of this age have been linked to the global burial of organic carbon, which is isotopically light. In contrast, examples of light carbon-isotope values from marine organic matter of Early Toarcian age have been explained principally in terms of localized upwelling of bottom water enriched in 12C versus 13C (refs 1,2,5,6). Here, however, we report carbon-isotope analyses of fossil wood which demonstrate that isotopically light carbon dominated all the upper oceanic, biospheric and atmospheric carbon reservoirs, and that this occurred despite the enhanced burial of organic carbon. We propose that--as has been suggested for the Late Palaeocene thermal maximum, some 55 million years ago--the observed patterns were produced by voluminous and extremely rapid release of methane from gas hydrate contained in marine continental-margin sediments.

-Carbon stable-isotope variation through the Cenomanian-Santonian stages is characterized using data for 1769 bulk pelagic carbonate samples collected from seven Chalk successions in England. The sections show consistent stratigraphic trends and δ 13 C values that provide a basis for highresolution correlation. Positive and negative δ 13 C excursions and inflection points on the isotope profiles are used to define 72 isotope events. Key markers are provided by positive δ 13 C excursions of up to + 2 ‰: the Albian/Cenomanian Boundary Event; Mid-Cenomanian Event I; the Cenomanian/Turonian Boundary Event; the Bridgewick, Hitch Wood and Navigation events of Late Turonian age; and the Santonian/Campanian Boundary Event. Isotope events are isochronous within a framework provided by macrofossil datum levels and bentonite horizons. An age-calibrated composite δ 13 C reference curve and an isotope event stratigraphy are constructed using data from the English Chalk. The isotope stratigraphy is applied to successions in Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Correlation with pelagic sections at Gubbio, central Italy, demonstrates general agreement between biostratigraphic and chemostratigraphic criteria in the Cenomanian-Turonian stages, confirming established relationships between Tethyan planktonic foraminiferal and Boreal macrofossil biozonations. Correlation of the Coniacian-Santonian stages is less clear cut: magnetostratigraphic evidence for placing the base of Chron 33r near the base of the Upper Santonian is in good agreement with the carbon-isotope correlation, but generates significant anomalies regarding the placement of the Santonian and Campanian stage boundaries with respect to Tethyan planktonic foraminiferal and nannofossil zones. Isotope stratigraphy offers a more reliable criterion for detailed correlation of Cenomanian-Santonian strata than biostratigraphy. With the addition of Campanian δ 13 C data from one of the English sections, a composite Cenomanian-Campanian age-calibrated reference curve is presented that can be utilized in future chemostratigraphic studies.The Cenomanian-Campanian carbon-isotope curve is remarkably similar in shape to supposedly eustatic sea-level curves: increasing δ 13 C values accompanying sea-level rise associated with transgression, and falling δ 13 C values characterizing sea-level fall and regression. The correlation between carbon isotopes and sea-level is explained by variations in epicontinental sea area affecting organic-matter burial fluxes: increasing shallow sea-floor area and increased accommodation space accompanying sea-level rise allowed more efficient burial of marine organic matter, with the preferential removal of 12 C from the marine carbon reservoir. During sea-level fall, reduced seafloor area, marine erosion of previously deposited sediments, and exposure of basin margins led to reduced organiccarbon burial fluxes and oxidation of previously deposited organic matter, causing falling δ 13 C values. Additionally, drowning of carbonate platforms during...

The Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event (OAE) in the Early Jurassic (∼183 Ma ago) was characterized by widespread near-synchronous deposition of organic-rich shales in marine settings, as well as perturbations to several isotopic systems. Characteristically, two positive carbon-isotope excursions in a range of materials are separated by an abrupt negative shift. Carbon-isotope profiles from Toarcian fossil wood collected in England and Denmark have previously been shown to exhibit this large drop (∼ −7‰) in δ 13 C values, interpreted as due to an injection of isotopically light CO 2 into the ocean-atmosphere system. However, the global nature of this excursion has been challenged on the basis of carbon-isotope data from nektonic marine molluscs (belemnites), which exhibit heavier than expected carbonisotope values. Here we present new data, principally from fossil wood and bulk carbonate collected at centimetre scale from a hemipelagic section at Peniche, coastal Portugal. This section is low in organic carbon (average TOC = ∼0.5%), and the samples should not have suffered significant diagenetic contamination by organic carbon of marine origin. The carbon-isotope profile based on wood shows two positive excursions separated by a large and abrupt negative excursion, which parallels exactly the profile based on bulk carbonate samples from the same section, albeit with approximately twice the amplitude (∼ −8‰ in wood versus ∼ −3.5‰ in carbonate). These data indicate that the negative carbon-isotope excursion affected the atmosphere and, by implication, the global ocean as well. The difference in amplitude between terrestrial organic and marine carbonate curves can be explained by greater water availability in the terrestrial environment during the negative excursion, for which there is independent evidence from marine osmiumisotope records and, plausibly, changes in atmospheric CO 2 content, for which independent evidence is also available. The Peniche succession is also notable for the occurrence of re-deposited sediments: their lowest occurrence coincides with the base of the negative excursion and their highest occurrence coincides with its top. Thus, slope instability and sediment supply could have been strongly linked to the global environmental perturbation, an association that may misleadingly simulate the effects of sea-level fall.

We present new, detailed carbon-isotope records for bulk carbonate, total organic carbon (TOC) and phytane from three key sections spanning the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary interval (Eastbourne, England; Gubbio, Italy; Tarfaya, Morocco), with the purpose of establishing a common chemostratigraphic framework for Oceanic Anoxic Event (OAE) 2. Isotope curves from all localities are characterized by a positive carbon-isotope excursion of c. 4‰ for TOC and phytane and c. 2.5‰ for carbonate, although diagenetic overprinting appears to have obliterated the primary carbonate carbon-isotope signal in at least part of the Tarfaya section. Stratigraphically, peak ä 13 C values for all components are followed by intervals of high, near-constant ä 13 C in the form of an isotopic plateau. Recognition of an unambiguous return to background ä 13 C values above the plateau is, however, contentious in all sections, hence no firm chemostratigraphic marker for the end-point of the positive isotopic excursion can be established. The stratigraphically consistent first appearance of the calcareous nannofossil Quadrum gartneri at or near the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary as established by ammonite stratigraphy, in conjunction with the end of the ä 13 C maximum characteristic of the isotopic plateau, provides a potentially powerful tool for delimiting the stratigraphic extent and duration of OAE 2. This Oceanic Anoxic Event is demonstrated to be largely, if not wholly, confined to the latest part of the Cenomanian stage.

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[1] Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 (OAE2), spanning the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary (CTB), represents one of the largest perturbations in the global carbon cycle in the last 100 Myr. The d 13 C carb , d 13 C org , and d 18 O chemostratigraphy of a black shale-bearing CTB succession in the Vocontian Basin of France is described and correlated at high resolution to the European CTB reference section at Eastbourne, England, and to successions in Germany, the equatorial and midlatitude proto-North Atlantic, and the U.S. Western Interior Seaway (WIS). D C (offset between d13 C carb and d 13 C org ) is shown to be a good pCO 2 proxy that is consistent with pCO 2 records obtained using biomarker d 13 C data from Atlantic black shales and leaf stomata data from WIS sections. Boreal chalk d18 O records show sea surface temperature (SST) changes that closely follow the D 13 C pCO 2 proxy and confirm TEX 86 results from deep ocean sites. Rising pCO 2 and SST during the Late Cenomanian is attributed to volcanic degassing; pCO 2 and SST maxima occurred at the onset of black shale deposition, followed by falling pCO 2 and cooling due to carbon sequestration by marine organic productivity and preservation, and increased silicate weathering. A marked pCO 2 minimum (∼25% fall) occurred with a SST minimum (Plenus Cold Event) showing >4°C of cooling in ∼40 kyr. Renewed increases in pCO 2 , SST, and d 13 C during latest Cenomanian black shale deposition suggest that a continuing volcanogenic CO 2 flux overrode further drawdown effects. Maximum pCO 2 and SST followed the end of OAE2, associated with a falling nutrient supply during the Early Turonian eustatic highstand.Citation: Jarvis, I., J. S. Lignum, D. R. Gröcke, H. C. Jenkyns, and M. A. Pearce (2011), Black shale deposition, atmospheric CO 2 drawdown, and cooling during the Cenomanian-Turonian Oceanic Anoxic Event, Paleoceanography, 26, PA3201,

The best-documented example of rapid climate change that characterized the socalled 'greenhouse world' took place at the time of the Palaeocene-Eocene boundary: introduction of isotopically light carbon into the ocean-atmosphere system, accompanied by global warming of 5-8• C across a range of latitudes, took place over a few thousand years. Dissociation, release and oxidation of gas hydrates from continental-margin sites and the consequent rapid global warming from the input of greenhouses gases are generally credited with causing the abrupt negative excursions in carbon-and oxygen-isotope ratios. The isotopic anomalies, as recorded in foraminifera, propagated downwards from the shallowest levels of the ocean, implying that considerable quantities of methane survived upward transit through the water column to oxidize in the atmosphere. In the Mesozoic Era, a number of similar events have been recognized, of which those at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, in the early Toarcian (Jurassic) and in the early Aptian (Cretaceous) currently carry the best documentation for dramatic rises in temperature. In these three examples, and in other less well-documented cases, the lack of a definitive time-scale for the intervals in question hinders calculation of the rate of environmental change. However, comparison with the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) suggests that these older examples could have been similarly rapid. In both the early Toarcian and early Aptian cases, the negative carbon-isotope excursion precedes global excess carbon burial across a range of marine environments, a phenomenon that defines these intervals as oceanic anoxic events (OAEs). Osmium-isotope ratios ( 187 Os/ 188 Os) for both the early Toarcian OAE and the PETM show an excursion to more radiogenic values, demonstrating an increase in weathering and erosion of continental crust consonant with elevated temperatures. The more highly buffered strontium-isotope system ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) also shows relatively more radiogenic signatures during the early Toarcian OAE, but the early Aptian and Cenomanian-Turonian OAEs show the reverse effect, implying that increased rates of sea-floor spreading and hydrothermal activity dominated over continental weathering in governing sea-water chemistry. The Cretaceous climatic optimum (late Cenomanian to mid Turonian) also shows evidence for abrupt cooling episodes characterized by episodic invasion of boreal faunas into temperate and subtropical regions and changes in terrestrial vegetation; drawdown of CO 2 related to massive marine carbon burial (OAE) may be implicated here. The absence of a pronounced negative carbon-isotope excursion preceding the One contribution of 14 to a Discussion Meeting 'Abrupt climate change: evidence, mechanisms and implications'.