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The Mesozoic Era is characterized by numerous oceanic anoxic events (OAEs) that are diagnostically expressed by widespread marine organic-carbon burial and coeval carbon-isotope excursions. Here we present coupled high-resolution carbon-and sulfurisotope data from four European OAE 2 sections spanning the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary that show roughly parallel positive excursions. Significantly, however, the interval of peak magnitude for carbon isotopes precedes that of sulfur isotopes with an estimated offset of a few hundred thousand years. Based on geochemical box modeling of organic-carbon and pyrite burial, the sulfur-isotope excursion can be generated by transiently increasing the marine burial rate of pyrite precipitated under euxinic (i.e., anoxic and sulfidic) water-column conditions. To replicate the observed isotopic offset, the model requires that enhanced levels of organic-carbon and pyrite burial continued a few hundred thousand years after peak organic-carbon burial, but that their isotope records responded differently due to dramatically different residence times for dissolved inorganic carbon and sulfate in seawater. The significant inference is that euxinia persisted post-OAE, but with its global extent dwindling over this time period. The model further suggests that only ∼5% of the global seafloor area was overlain by euxinic bottom waters during OAE 2. Although this figure is ∼30× greater than the small euxinic fraction present today (∼0.15%), the result challenges previous suggestions that one of the best-documented OAEs was defined by globally pervasive euxinic deep waters. Our results place important controls instead on local conditions and point to the difficulty in sustaining wholeocean euxinia.carbonate-associated sulfur | geochemical modeling

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[1] A marine Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB) section at Nhi Tao, Vietnam, contains a series of at least 9 pyritic horizons characterized by concurrent decreases in pyrite S-(d 34 S py ) and carbonate C-isotopic compositions (d 13 C carb ). The first and largest of the events that precipitated these pyritic horizons was coincident with the Late Permian mass extinction, while subsequent events were generally smaller and occurred at quasiperiodic intervals of $20 to 30 ka. A near complete lack of organic carbon to drive bacterial sulfate reduction in sediment pore waters, among other considerations, argues against a diagenetic control for these relationships. Rather, the covariant patterns documented herein are most easily explained as the product of recurrent upwelling of anoxic deep-ocean waters containing 34 S-depleted hydrogen sulfide and 13 C-depleted dissolved inorganic carbon. The sulfide d 34S record of the study section represents a mixture of a small amount of isotopically heavy authigenic pyrite (formed via in situ bacterial sulfate reduction) with a generally larger quantity of isotopically light syngenetic pyrite precipitated within the water column during upwelling episodes. Although upwelling of toxic deepwaters has been invoked in earlier studies as a mechanism for the Late Permian marine mass extinction, this is the first study to (1) document patterns of pyrite-d 13 C carb covariation that strongly support upwelling as a major process at the PTB and (2) provide evidence of multiple, quasiperiodic upwelling events that may reflect reinvigoration of global-ocean overturn following a prolonged interval of Late Permian deep-ocean stagnation.Components: 5322 words, 5 figures.

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