Assessing pelagic palaeoenvironments using foraminiferal assemblages — A case study from the late Campanian Radotruncana calcarata Zone (Upper Cretaceous, Austrian Alps)

AbstractTwo upper Campanian sections in the Austrian Alps representing the north western Tethyan biogeographic realm from either sides of the Penninic Ocean (Alpine Tethys) have been examined aiming at a high-resolution assessment of foraminiferal assemblages: the Postalm section from the Northern Calcareous Alps (southern active margin) and the Oberhehenfeld section from the Ultrahelvetics (northern passive margin). This study focuses on plankton biostratigraphy and foraminiferal palaeoecology of the Radotruncana calcarata Total Range Zone.The Postalm section displays cyclic red deposits with marls and marly limestones, while we find uniform grey marls at Oberhehenfeld. The Oberhehenfeld section from the Ultrahelvetics can be correlated stratigraphically to the Postalm section using foraminifera, calcareous nannoplankton and stable isotope stratigraphy, and provides a point of comparison from the northern margin of the Penninic Ocean.The two sections show minimal difference in faunal composition and few distinct local stratigraphic signals. Palaeoenvironmental trends from the late Campanian can be recognised relating the two sections from the Austrian Alps. The depositional water depth can be reconstructed as some 500–800m. Plankton assemblages show a remarkable stability despite the sudden appearance and disappearance of R. calcarata, hinting at the late Campanian as a time interval of general foraminiferal stasis without significant evolutionary events. We speculate that the origin and extinction of R. calcarata are related to the prolonged evolution of ocean stratification during the Campanian from the mid-Cretaceous sluggish hothouse during a time of general slow greenhouse climate decline

From grey to red pelagic sediments during the Turonian: a benthic foraminifera perspective

Abstrac

Extraordinary human energy consumption and resultant geological impacts beginning around 1950 CE initiated the proposed Anthropocene Epoch

Growth in fundamental drivers—energy use, economic productivity and population—can provide quantitative indications of the proposed boundary between the Holocene Epoch and the Anthropocene. Human energy expenditure in the Anthropocene, ~22 zetajoules (ZJ), exceeds that across the prior 11,700 years of the Holocene (~14.6 ZJ), largely through combustion of fossil fuels. The global warming effect during the Anthropocene is more than an order of magnitude greater still. Global human population, their productivity and energy consumption, and most changes impacting the global environment, are highly correlated. This extraordinary outburst of consumption and productivity demonstrates how the Earth System has departed from its Holocene state since ~1950 CE, forcing abrupt physical, chemical and biological changes to the Earth’s stratigraphic record that can be used to justify the proposal for naming a new epoch—the Anthropocene

Review: Short-term sea-level changes in a greenhouse world - A view from the Cretaceous

© 2015. This review provides a synopsis of ongoing research and our understanding of the fundamentals of sea-level change today and in the geologic record, especially as illustrated by conditions and processes during the Cretaceous greenhouse climate episode. We give an overview of the state of the art of our understanding on eustatic (global) versus relative (regional) sea level, as well as long-term versus short-term fluctuations and their drivers. In the context of the focus of UNESCO-IUGS/IGCP project 609 on Cretaceous eustatic, short-term sea-level and climate changes, we evaluate the possible evidence for glacio-eustasy versus alternative or additional mechanisms for continental water storage and release for the Cretaceous greenhouse and hothouse phases during which the presence of larger continental ice shields is considered unlikely. Increasing evidence in the literature suggests a correlation between long-period orbital cycles and depositional cycles that reflect sea-level fluctuations, implying a globally synchronized forcing of (eustatic) sea level. Fourth-order depositional sequences seem to be related to a ~. 405. ka periodicity, which most likely represents long-period orbital eccentricity control on sea level and depositional cycles. Third-order cyclicity, expressed as time-synchronous sea level falls of ~. 20 to 110. m on ~. 0.5 to 3.0. Ma timescales in the Cretaceous, are increasingly recognized as connected to climate cycles triggered by long-term astronomical cycles that have periodicity ranging from ~. 1.0 to 2.4. Ma. Future perspectives of research on greenhouse sea-level changes comprise a high-precision time-scale for sequence stratigraphy and eustatic sea-level changes and high-resolution marine to non-marine stratigraphic correlation

Response to Merritts et al. (2023): The Anthropocene is complex. Defining it is not

Merritts et al. (2023) misrepresent Paul Crutzen's Anthropocene concept as encompassing all significant anthropogenic impacts, extending back many millennia. Crutzen's definition reflects massively enhanced, much more recent human impacts that transformed the Earth System away from the stability of Holocene conditions. His concept of an epoch (hence the ‘cene’ suffix) is more consistent with the strikingly distinct sedimentary record accumulated since the mid-20th century. Waters et al. (2022) highlighted a Great Acceleration Event Array (GAEA) of stratigraphic event markers that are indeed diverse and complex but also tightly clustered around 1950 CE, allowing ultra-high resolution characterization and correlation of a clearly recognisable Anthropocene chronostratigraphic base. The ‘Anthropocene event’ offered by Merritts et al., following Gibbard et al. (2021, 2022), is a highly nuanced concept that obfuscates the transformative human impact of the chronostratigraphic Anthropocene. Waters et al. (2022) restricted the meaning of the term ‘event’ in geology to conform with usual Quaternary practice and improve its utility. They simultaneously recognized an evidence-based Anthropogenic Modification Episode that is more explicitly defined than the highly interpretive interdisciplinary ‘Anthropocene event’ of Gibbard et al. (2021, 2022). The advance of science is best served through clearly developed concepts supported by tightly circumscribed terminology; indeed, improvements to stratigraphy over recent decades have been achieved through increasingly precise definitions, especially for chronostratigraphic units, and not by retaining vague terminology