Cryptic sulfur cycling during the formation of giant gypsum deposits

Guibourdenche, Laetitia; Cartigny, Pierre; Pierre, Francesco Dela; Natalicchio, Marcello; Aloisi, Giovanni

doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117676

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 102 publications

(137 reference statements)

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“…It is also possible that a large proportion of reduced sulfur was rapidly reoxidized within the same environmental setting without significantly affecting the δ 34 S record. Such a “cryptic sulfur cycle” has been described from TRS-poor gypsum deposits of Messinian age whose δ 34 S tracks the composition of contemporaneous seawater . Local variability in the degree of sulfide formation and reoxidation may contribute to the variability observed in δ 34 S CAS and δ 34 S TRS .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Such a “cryptic sulfur cycle” has been described from TRS-poor gypsum deposits of Messinian age whose δ 34 S tracks the composition of contemporaneous seawater. 39 Local variability in the degree of sulfide formation and reoxidation may contribute to the variability observed in δ 34 S CAS and δ 34 S TRS . In any case, our results differ from modern sulfate-poor lakes (0.1–0.35 mM), where sulfide in sediments trends toward the isotopic composition of the available sulfate.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring the Effects of Residence Time on the Utility of Stable Isotopes and S/C Ratios as Proxies for Ocean Connectivity

Stüeken

Viehmann

Hohl

2023

ACS Earth Space Chem.

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Various geochemical proxies have been developed to determine if ancient sedimentary strata were deposited in marine or nonmarine environments. A critical parameter for proxy reliability is the residence time of aqueous species in seawater, which is rarely considered for proxies relying on stable isotopes and elemental abundance ratios. Differences in residence time may affect our ability to track geologically short-lived alternations between marine and nonmarine conditions. To test this effect for sulfur and nitrogen isotopes and sulfur/carbon ratios, we investigated a stratigraphic section in the Miocene Oberpullendorf Basin in Austria. Here, previous work revealed typical seawater-like rare earth element and yttrium (REY) systematics transitioning to nonmarine-like systematics. This shift was interpreted as a brief transition from an open marine depositional setting to a restricted embayment with a reduced level of exchange with the open ocean and possibly freshwater influence. Our isotopic results show no discernible response in carbonate-associated sulfate sulfur isotopes and carbon/sulfur abundance ratios during the interval of marine restriction inferred from the REY data, but nitrogen isotopes show a decrease by several permil. This observation is consistent with the much longer residence time of sulfate in seawater compared with REY and nitrate. Hence, this case study illustrates that the residence time is a key factor for the utility of seawater proxies. In some cases, it may make geochemical parameters more sensitive to marine water influx than paleontological observations, as in the Oberpullendorf Basin. Particular care is warranted in deep time, when marine residence times likely differ markedly from the modern.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Effects of Residence Time on the Utility of Stable Isotopes and S/C Ratios as Proxies for Ocean Connectivity

Stüeken

Viehmann

Hohl

2023

ACS Earth Space Chem.

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“…Local conditions such as high river inflow might have prevented gypsum formation by locally reducing the salinity (e.g., Ebro delta in the VB; Figure 7). Other local geo‐chemical and geo‐biological factors might have also prevented the formation of gypsum locally in deep basin context (e.g., reduced supply of gypsum from the water column and higher rates of bacterial sulphate reduction, deriving from permanent seafloor anoxia and larger availability of organic matter; Guibourdenche et al, 2022; Natalicchio et al, 2021). In shallow water where freshwater dilution did not play a role, the absence of PLG must mean that it has been removed after deposition.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A song of volumes, surfaces and fluxes: The case study of the Central Mallorca Depression (Balearic Promontory) during the Messinian Salinity Crisis

et al. 2022

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The Central Mallorca Depression (CMD) located in the Balearic Promontory (Western Mediterranean) contains a well-preserved evaporitic sequence belonging to the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC) salt giant, densely covered by highand low-resolution seismic reflection data. It has been proposed recently that the MSC evaporitic sequence in the CMD could be a non-deformed analogue of the key MSC area represented by the Caltanissetta Basin in Sicily. This presumed similarity makes the CMD an interesting system to better understand the MSC events. Physics-based box models of the water mixing between sub-basins, EAGE RAAD et al.

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“…We use this age model to integrate new and published and strontium isotope data to reconstruct the paleoenvironmental and paleohydrological evolution of the Adriatic during the final phase of the MSC. We conclude that somewhere between 5.59 and 5.55 Ma, which corresponds to the nadir of the MSC when the Mediterranean water level was probably at its lowest and halite precipitated in its deepest basins, the Adriatic ; (2, 3) Natalicchio et al ( , 2021; (4) Guibourdenche et al, 2022;(5) Lugli et al, 2010;(6) Natalicchio et al ( 2019); ( 7) Sabino et al (2021); ( 8) Aloisi et al (2022); ( 9) Krijgsman et al (2018);(10) Roveri et al (2014a);(11) Amadori et al (2018);(12) Roveri et al (2008a);(13) Cazzini et al (2020); ( 14) Andreetto et al (2022a);(15) Micallef et al (2018); ( 16) Garcia-Castellanos et al (2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…5.1c), also known as Gessoso-Solfifera Fm. This unit comprises a gypsum member precipitated in shallow piggy-back basins, and a gypsum-free, euxinic shales member deposited in deeper, suboxic to anoxic settings (Lugli et al, 2010;Dela Pierre et al, 2011;Guibourdenche et al, 2022). The sediments of the Gessoso-Solfifera Fm.…”

Section: The Sedimentary Record Of the Adriatic Megalakementioning

confidence: 99%

Birth, evolution and demise of the Mediterranean Lago-Mare

Andreetto¹

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The Mediterranean Sea is a large sea almost completely enclosed by Europe, Africa, and SW Asia. Today, the continuous flow of Atlantic seawater through the Strait of Gibraltar balances the net water loss due to the excess of evaporation over input from rain and rivers and keeps the Mediterranean a marine basin with the water level equal to the global ocean level. In the late Miocene, the input of Atlantic seawater was through shallow gateways in southern Spain and northern Morocco. The exhumation of the Betic and Rif Cordilleras and orbitally-controlled regional climate change contributed to the step-by-step close these marine gateways and transformed the Mediterranean into an inhospitable evaporitic sea, starting at 5.96±0.02 Ma. The environmental and hydrological crisis that followed, known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis, peaked at ~5.55 Ma, when a 1.5-2 km-thick salt layer precipitated on the sea floor, and terminated at ~5.332 Ma, when normal marine conditions were re-established, perhaps as a consequence of catastrophic flooding at Gibraltar. The transitional interval from the giant salina to Mediterranean Sea that resembles what we know today is known as the Lago-Mare phase. Gypsum and brackish water biota from the Central Paratethys (approximately coinciding with the present-day Hungary-Slovenia) are both characteristic of Lago-Mare successions. This sedimentary and paleontological evidence suggest that the Mediterranean, during the Lago-Mare phase, experienced a complex history of inter- and extrabasinal connections, base-level fluctuations and extreme environmental and biological changes. This thesis aims to reconstruct the fiercely debated Mediterranean water level changes and identify the hydrological fluxes responsible for these Lago-Mare environmental and biological turnover events. It focuses on key sections exposed on-land and recovered from deep sea cores along an E-W transect across the Mediterranean with a multi-disciplinary approach that integrates biocyclostratigraphic analyses with high-resolution Sr-isotope ratios. The new data show that the Lago-Mare phase was a far more dynamic period of the Mediterranean history than previously thought. Large areas of the Mediterranean were occupied by an anomalohaline water mass predominantly formed by low-salinity waters from the Eastern Paratethys (i.e. the present-day Black-Caspian seas) and from the larger circum-Mediterranean rivers such as the Nile, the Rhône and currently dried North-African rivers. A small and possibly episodic Atlantic flux was a minor contributor. The regular variability of the Mediterranean’s freshwater budget with the astronomic precession combined with fluctuating Atlantic inflow and negligible outflow resulted in a Mediterranean base level that oscillated dramatically, but consistently below eustatic sea level. These precession-paced fluctuations caused the low-salinity Paratethyan biota to colonize the marginal areas of the Mediterranean at times of high base level and central areas during phases of low base level, gypsum to precipitate only in the deeper basins during the regressive phases and silled regions such as the Adriatic and the North Aegean to exist for long as some of the largest endorheic lakes.

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Cryptic sulfur cycling during the formation of giant gypsum deposits

Cited by 5 publications

References 102 publications

Exploring the Effects of Residence Time on the Utility of Stable Isotopes and S/C Ratios as Proxies for Ocean Connectivity

Exploring the Effects of Residence Time on the Utility of Stable Isotopes and S/C Ratios as Proxies for Ocean Connectivity

A song of volumes, surfaces and fluxes: The case study of the Central Mallorca Depression (Balearic Promontory) during the Messinian Salinity Crisis

Birth, evolution and demise of the Mediterranean Lago-Mare

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