Kick-starting ancient warming

Abstract

International audienceThe warm period known as the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a period of climatic turmoil that lasted more than 100,000 years. Ocean temperatures increased by 3–10 |[deg]|C, and atmospheric concentrations of methane and carbon dioxide rose sharply

Hertfordshire Puddingstone: relationship to the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and a perspective on human-induced climate change

“…Maclennan and Jones (2006) suggest that a hot pulse from the Iceland plume caused uplift of the floor of the nascent North Atlantic Ocean, thereby destabilising methane hydrates, or other substantial deposits of carbon (Nisbet et al, 2009), and triggering the PETM. Uplift of early Scotland by that same 55 Ma pulse in the plume has been proposed as the trigger for erosion of sand from early Scotland and its subsequent deposition by Fig.…”

Late Paleocene‐middle Eocene benthic foraminifera on a Pacific seamount (Allison Guyot, ODP Site 865): Greenhouse climate and superimposed hyperthermal events

“…Because of the similarities among the hyperthermals, it is widely accepted that they may have had a common cause, i.e., emission of isotopically light carbon compounds to the ocean-atmosphere system. The source of the carbon compounds as well as the triggering mechanism of emission are still under strong debate, including such diverse proposed sources as methane from dissociation of gas hydrates through oceanic warming [e.g., Dickens et al, 1995;Dickens, 2011] possibly triggered through orbital forcing [Lunt et al, 2011], release of carbon from organic matter oxidation through drying of marginal basins [Higgins and Schrag, 2006], burning of peat deposits [Kurtz et al, 2003], heating of organic matter by intrusion of volcanic sills [Svensen et al, 2004[Svensen et al, , 2010Storey et al, 2007], release of dissolved methane from a silled North Atlantic Basin [Nisbet et al, 2009], and orbitally forced dissociation of permafrost deposits on Antarctica [de Conto et al, 2012].…”

Drilling disturbance and constraints on the onset of the Paleocene–Eocene boundary carbon isotope excursion in New Jersey

“…All attempts at explaining the event involve the addition of large amounts of isotopically light carbon to the exogenic carbon pool. Non-exclusive possibilities include volcanic emissions (Eldholm and Thomas, 1993;Bralower et al, 1997;Storey et al, 2007), the mobilization and oxidation of seafloor methane from clathrates (Dickens et al, 1995;Katz et al, 1999), emission of thermogenic methane from deeply buried hydrocarbons after igneous intrusion (Kurtz et al, 2003;Svenson et al, 2004), oxidation of organic-rich sediments in epicontinental seas (Higgins and Schrag, 2006), release of dissolved carbon compounds from stratified marine basins (Nisbet et al, 2009), runaway release of methane from rapidly melting permafrost (Deconto et al, 2012), combustion of part of the P. N. Pearson and E. Thomas: Drilling disturbance and constraints on the onset of the Paleocene-Eocene biosphere (Huber, 2008), and extraterrestrial carbon dumped by a comet, the impact of which could have triggered further methane release (Kent et al, 2003;Cramer and Kent, 2005;Wang et al, 2013). Most stratigraphic records indicate a geologically rapid onset, but that definition could mean any duration between approx.…”