Carbon-Isotope Stratigraphy and Paleoceanographic Significance of the Lower Cretaceous Shallow-Water Carbonates of Resolution Guyot, Mid-Pacific Mountains

Abstract

Matching of Lower Cretaceous carbon-isotope curves derived from pelagic sediments of the Tethyan-Atlantic sector with that obtained from peritidal carbonates of Resolution Guyot (Site 866, Mid-Pacific Mountains) provides constraints in positioning the Hauterivian/Barremian, Barremian/Aptian, and Aptian/Albian stage boundaries. A negative excursion in the earliest Barremian of the reference sections suggests that the Hauterivian/Barremian boundary on Resolution Guyot should lie in the interval 1425 to 1500 mbsf. A major positive isotopic excursion, whose onset is positioned just below the base of a major oolitic sand package, is ascribed to the blowi Zone (late early Aptian), a time of regional deep-marine organic-carbon burial (Selli Level) in the Pacific, Atlantic, and European regions. A finely laminated organic-carbon-rich level (14.2% total organic carbon) in the shallow-water packstone-wackestones is exactly coincident with the beginning of the isotopic excursion and can be considered an equivalent to the Selli Level deposited in water of very modest depth. The Barremian/Aptian stage boundary must be located below strata attributed to the blowi Zone, and should lie close to 900 mbsf. Decay of the excursion is complete by about 500 mbsf, a level which should be near to the Aptian/Albian boundary.

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“…Short-term variations in the δ 13 C signals of shallow water carbonates are widely used to identify the primary variations in the Early Cretaceous oceanic δ 13 C signature (Jenkyns, 1995;Vahrenkamp, 1996;Grötsch et al, 1998). Limestones from the Los Torotes section have positive carbon isotope values (+3.33 to +5.26‰ VPDB).…”

“…Carbonate rocks deposited in marine environments mainly preserve the carbon isotopic composition of the ocean water (Scholle and Arthur, 1980). The stratigraphic correlation of marine carbonates by means of carbon isotope data has been applied to Cretaceous marine carbonate sediments (Jenkyns, 1995;Weissert et al, 1998;Moullade et al, 1998;Grotsch et al, 1998;Armstrong-Altrin et al, 2011;Madhavaraju et al, 2013aMadhavaraju et al, , 2013b.…”

Diagenetic significance of carbon, oxygen and strontium isotopic compositions in the Aptian-Albian Mural Formation in Cerro Pimas area, northern Sonora, Mexico.

“…The stratigraphic correlation of marine carbonates using carbon isotope record has been successfully applied to Cretaceous marine carbonate sediments (Jenkyns, 1995;Weissert et al, 1998;Moullade et al, 1998). It was initially applied to pelagic succession, but has since been applied also to shallow marine carbonates (Jenkyns, 1995;Ferreri et al, 1997;Grotsch et al, 1998), with promising results, when compared to biostratigraphic (Masse et al, 1999;Erba et al, 1999) and magnetostratigraphic (Lini et al, 1992;Henning et al, 1999) data.…”

Évolution de la plate-forme carbonatée de Kruja, en Albanie, du crétacé à l'éocène /

“…Trace elements and carbon isotope stratigraphy realised in pelagic and hemipelagic carbonate successions combined with sedimentoîogical analyse have been conducted to recognize systems tracts and sea-level changes for Cretaceous time (Jenkyns, 1995;Bellanca et al, 1996;Perez-Infante et al, 1996;Weissert et al, 1998;Kump and Arthur, 1999;Masse et al, 1999;Jarvis et al, 2001). …”