Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous hydrocarbon seep boulders from Novaya Zemlya and their faunas

Abstract

The paper describes Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous seep carbonate boulders from the Russian Arctic island of Novaya Zemlya, collected in 1875 by A.E. Nordenskiöld during his expedition to Siberia. The carbonates are significantly depleted in heavy carbon isotopes Other seep faunas with similar taxonomic structure are suggestive of rather shallow water settings, but in case of Novaya Zemlya seep faunas such structure might result also from high northern latitude.

Oxfordian neptunian dykes with brachiopods from the southern part of the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland (southern Poland) and their links to hydrothermal vents

“…Similarly to hydrocarbon seeps, such sites support mass growth of specific fauna, sometimes including brachiopods (Sandy and Campbell 1994;Campbell and Bottjer 1995;Little et al 1997Little et al , 1999Little et al , 2004Van Dover 2000;Peckmann et al 2007Peckmann et al , 2011Gischler et al 2003;Lee et al 2008;Sandy 2010;Bujtor 2011;Sandy et al 2014;Kiel et al 2014;Hryniewicz et al 2015).…”

The phylogeography and ecology of Oligobrachia frenulate species suggest a generalist chemosynthesis-based fauna in the arctic

“…Other than the few shallow water ones [ 42 , 72 , 73 ], and thereby for the majority of Arctic seep sites studied, the lack of specialist fauna represents a deviation from trends at seeps in other parts of the world. Even on geological timescales, a paucity of seep specialist fauna has been observed at Arctic seeps [ 71 , [74] , [75] , [76] , [77] ]. Based on our sediment geochemistry data, we posit that the presence of environments such as fjords and sounds with sulfidic conditions which are particularly widespread at the Nordic Seas and Barents Sea margin could have led to more generalized chemosymbiotic species than specialist ones.…”

Palynology of Early Cretaceous (Barremian to Aptian) hydrocarbon (methane) seep carbonates and associated mudstones, Wollaston Forland, Northeast Greenland

“…Japan and Western USA) and sites that were in the Tethys Ocean (principally Southern to Eastern Europe; Kiel et al, 2008;Kaim et al, 2013). Four areas of Jurassic to Cretaceous aged hydrocarbon seepage are known from the present-day Arctic region, including two sites in Northeast Greenland: one Barremian (Kuhnpasset, Wollaston Forland; Kelly et al, 2000) and one Campanian (Leitch Bjerg, Geographical Society Ø); Svalbard (Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary; Hammer et al, 2011); Arctic Canada (Albian of Prince Patrick Island and Ellef Ringnes Island; Beauchamp and Savard, 1992;Williscroft et al, 2017) and Novaya Zemlya (three ages of seepage: late Oxfordian-early Kimmeridgian, late Tithonian and latest Berriasian-early Valanginian; Hryniewicz et al, 2015). In the Mesozoic, the latter three areas were part of the Boreal Ocean, which was a relatively isolated sea with limited marine connections with the Tethys and ancient Pacific (Panthalassic) Oceans (Zakharov et al, 2002).…”