Comparison of a paleosol-carbonate isotope record to other records of Pliocene-early Pleistocene climate in the western United States

Smith, Gary A.; Wang, Yang; Cerling, Thure E.; Geissman, J. W.

doi:10.1130/0091-7613(1993)021<0691:coapci>2.3.co;2

Cited by 44 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…During the past 30 years this method of environmental reconstruction has been applied to early hominin and hominoid localities in East Africa (e.g., Cerling et al, 1977Cerling et al, , 1988Cerling and Hay, 1986;Cerling, 1992;Kingston et al, 1994;Sikes, 1994Sikes, , 1996Sikes, , 2000Sikes et al, 1997Sikes et al, , 1999and summarized in Sikes, 1999), as well as other time periods and areas worldwide (e.g., Quade et al, 1989aQuade et al, , 1995Smith et al, 1993;Alam et al, 1997). Pedogenic carbonate and organic 8^^C values represent many generations of plants, averaged over the lifetime of a soil (hundreds or thousands of years).…”

Section: Soil Stable Isotope Valuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Alhough the continental record is discontinuous and cannot be expected to mirror the marine sedimentary sequence (see Sikes, 1999), stable isotopic studies of paleosols have been correlated with other continental or global proxy records of paleoclimate (Smith et al, 1993;deMenocal, 1995;Quade et al, 1995). Further, lacustrine ecosystems like paleo-Olduvai are most appropriate for such studies because small, closed basins are highly sensitive to climatic fluctuations (e.g., Feibel, 1999).…”

Section: Paleoclimatementioning

confidence: 99%

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Stable isotopes of pedogenic carbonates as indicators of paleoecology in the Plio-Pleistocene (upper Bed I), western margin of the Olduvai Basin, Tanzania

Sikes

Ashley

2007

Journal of Human Evolution

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Section: Soil Stable Isotope Valuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Paleoclimatementioning

confidence: 99%

Stable isotopes of pedogenic carbonates as indicators of paleoecology in the Plio-Pleistocene (upper Bed I), western margin of the Olduvai Basin, Tanzania

Sikes

Ashley

2007

Journal of Human Evolution

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“…In the western United States, numerous investigations have sought to determine and interpret ␦ 18 O of ancient precipitation by measuring the isotopic composition of mineral proxies, including carbonate fossils (Norris et al, 1996;Dettman and Lohmann, 2000;Morrill and Koch, 2002), paleosol carbonate (Smith et al, 1993;Koch et al, 1995), hematite coatings on fossils (Bao et al, 1999), biogenic mineralized phosphate (Kolodny and Luz, 1991;Fricke, 2003), authigenic clay minerals (Lawrence and Taylor, 1971;Stern et al, 1997;Chamberlain and Poage, 2000;Poage and Chamberlain, 2002), and lake limestones and carbonate cements (Horton et al, 2004). The uncertainty involved in relating the measured isotopic compositions of these minerals to environmental parameters of interest, particularly temperature, has been a subject of much discussion (Koch et al, 1995;Fricke and O'Neil, 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oxygen and hydrogen isotope ratios in freshwater chert as indicators of ancient climate and hydrologic regime

Abruzzese

Waldbauer

Chamberlain

2005

Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta

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The oxygen and hydrogen isotopic composition of Eocene and Miocene freshwater cherts in the western United States records regional climatic variation in the Cenozoic. Here, we present isotopic measurements of 47 freshwater cherts of Eocene and Miocene age from the Great Basin of the western United States at two different sites and interpret them in light of regional climatic and tectonic history. The large range of ␦ 18 O of terrestrial cherts measured in this study, from 11.2‰ to 31.2‰ (SMOW: Standard Mean Ocean), is shown to be primarily the result of variations in ␦ 18 O of surface water. The following trends and patterns are recognized within this range of ␦ 18 O values. First, in Cenozoic rocks of northern Nevada, chert ␦ 18 O records the same shift observed in authigenic calcite between the Eocene and Miocene that has been attributed to regional surface uplift. The consistent covariation of proxies suggests that chert reliably records and retains a signal of ancient meteoric water isotopic composition, even though our analyses show that chert formed from warmer waters (40°C) than coexisting calcite (20°C). Second, there is a strong positive correlation between ␦ 18 O and ␦D in Eocene age chert from Elko, Nevada and Salina, Utah that suggests large changes in lake water isotopic composition due to evaporation. Evaporative effects on lake water isotopic composition, rather than surface temperature, exert the primary control on the isotopic composition of chert, accounting for 10‰ of the 16‰ range in ␦ 18 O measured in Eocene cherts. From authigenic mineral data, we calculate a range in isotopic composition of Eocene precipitation in the north-central Great Basin of Ϫ10 to Ϫ14‰ for ␦ 18 O and Ϫ70 to Ϫ100‰ for ␦D, which is in agreement with previous estimates for Eocene basins of the western United States. Due to its resistance to alteration and record of variations in both ␦ 18 O and ␦D of water, chert has the potential to corroborate and constrain the cause of variations in isotope stratigraphies.

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“…Higher aggradation rate during Gauss time (Fig. 4) may reflect higher sediment production in transverse catchments caused by a slightly moister climatic regime, as suggested by regional stable-isotope studies of Calcisol carbonate (Smith et al, 1993;Mack et al, 1994). The semi-arid palaeoclimate may have produced hydrographs including, as today (Fig.…”

Section: Discussion: Tectonic Versus Climatic Modesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Basin‐Fill Incision, Rio Grande and Gulf of Corinth Rifts: Convergent Response to Climatic and Tectonic Drivers

Leeder

Mack

2007

Sedimentary Processes, Environments and Basins

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The influence of tectonics and climate on basin-fill erosion and incision in the Gulf of Corinth rift, central Greece, and Rio Grande rift, southwest USA, is examined. Overall, it is suggested that climate change controls the downstream water:sediment ratio and sediment transport capacity, via operation of the continuity equation. Tectonics, specifically the rapid growth and propagation of structures, sets up gradient contrasts and upstream-migrating changes in transport capacity via operation of the diffusivity equation. A steady-state aggradational mode operated in the southern Rio Grande rift between ~5 and 0.8 Ma, causing preservation of ancestral axial-channel and floodplain deposits due to relatively slow, long-term active rift subsidence. The onset of major climatic change around 0.8 Ma resulted in the axial river periodically incising to a total extent of ~150 m, removing about 25% by volume of previously accumulated sediment, despite continued active faulting and fault-induced subsidence. This climatic mode is interpreted to be a periodic response to positive downstream gradients in sediment transport rate during glacial and glacial-transition periods, caused by low-level external sediment sourcing and a dominance of large magnitude spring snowmelt floods from northern mountain valleys. Tectonic drivers are spectacularly demonstrated in the Gulf of Corinth, where a new theory of 'piggy-back' basin abandonment and regional uplift is proposed, as formerly active rift-margin faults are progressively dragged above the flat slab of underriding African lithosphere. Basin abandonment occurred across newly propagating faults, with erosion and basin-fill incision of up to 800 m depth, as discontinuities in drainage channel slope have migrated rapidly upstream. In both rifts, sediment relaxation time, T s = l 2 /κ, where l is a length scale and κ is sediment diffusivity, is probably short, since relevant length scales are small and diffusivities large. Thus in the Rio Grande rift, despite the great length of the river system as a whole, it is the balance between hydrological and sediment input from the many lateral tributaries that controls non-uniform transport capacity of the axial channel. In the case of the Gulf of Corinth rift, it is the high strain rate that causes diffusivity to be large in drainages cutting across rapidly vertically-growing normal faults.

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Comparison of a paleosol-carbonate isotope record to other records of Pliocene-early Pleistocene climate in the western United States

Cited by 44 publications

References 0 publications

Stable isotopes of pedogenic carbonates as indicators of paleoecology in the Plio-Pleistocene (upper Bed I), western margin of the Olduvai Basin, Tanzania

Stable isotopes of pedogenic carbonates as indicators of paleoecology in the Plio-Pleistocene (upper Bed I), western margin of the Olduvai Basin, Tanzania

Oxygen and hydrogen isotope ratios in freshwater chert as indicators of ancient climate and hydrologic regime

Basin‐Fill Incision, Rio Grande and Gulf of Corinth Rifts: Convergent Response to Climatic and Tectonic Drivers

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