The Source and Fate of Massive Carbon Input During the Latest Paleocene Thermal Maximum
Miriam E. Katz,
1*
Dorothy K. Pak,
2
Gerald R. Dickens,
3
Kenneth G. Miller
1
Lithologic, faunal, seismic, and isotopic evidence from the Blake
Nose (subtropical western North Atlantic) links a massive release of
biogenic methane ~55.5 million years ago to a warming of deep-ocean
and high-latitude surface waters, a large perturbation in the combined
ocean-atmosphere carbon cycle (the largest of the past 90 million
years), a mass extinction event in benthic faunas, and a radiation of
mammalian orders. The deposition of a mud clast interval and seismic
evidence for slope disturbance are associated with intermediate water
warming, massive carbon input to the global exogenic carbon cycle,
pelagic carbonate dissolution, a decrease in dissolved oxygen, and a
benthic foraminiferal extinction event. These events provide evidence
to confirm the gas hydrate dissociation hypothesis and identify the
Blake Nose as a site of methane release.
1 Department of Geological Sciences, Rutgers
University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
2 Department
of Geological Sciences and Marine Science Institute, University of
California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
3 School
of Earth Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland 4811, Australia.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed.
