TY - JOUR
T1 - Neodymium isotopic reconstruction of late Paleocene-early Eocene thermohaline circulation
AU - Thomas, Deborah J.
AU - Bralower, Timothy J.
AU - Jones, Charles E.
N1 - Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge the thorough reviews of Ellen Martin and Adina Paytan that improved the manuscript. Many thanks to Brent Miller and Drew Coleman for thoughtful discussions. Samples were provided by the Ocean Drilling Program, and we thank the curatorial staff for all of their help. This work was funded by a JOI/USSAC Fellowship (D.J.T.) and NSF Grant EAR-98-14604 (T.J.B.). [KF]
PY - 2003/4/30
Y1 - 2003/4/30
N2 - High-resolution, fish tooth Nd isotopic records for eight Deep Sea Drilling Project and Ocean Drilling Program sites were used to reconstruct the nature of late Paleocene-early Eocene deep-water circulation. The goal of this reconstruction was to test the hypothesis that a change in thermohaline circulation patterns caused the abrupt 4-5°C warming of deep and bottom waters at the Paleocene/Eocene boundary - the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) event. The combined set of records indicates a deep-water mass common to the North and South Atlantic, Southern and Indian oceans characterized by mean εNd values of ∼ -8.7, and different water masses found in the central Pacific Ocean (εNd ∼ -4.3) and Caribbean Sea (εNd ∼ 1.2). The geographic pattern of Nd isotopic values before and during the PETM suggests a Southern Ocean deep-water formation site for deep and bottom waters in the Atlantic and Indian ocean basins. The Nd data do not contain evidence for a change in the composition of deep waters prior to the onset of the PETM. This finding is consistent with the pattern of warming established by recently published stable isotope records, suggesting that deep- and bottom-water warming during the PETM was gradual and the consequence of surface-water warming in regions of downwelling.
AB - High-resolution, fish tooth Nd isotopic records for eight Deep Sea Drilling Project and Ocean Drilling Program sites were used to reconstruct the nature of late Paleocene-early Eocene deep-water circulation. The goal of this reconstruction was to test the hypothesis that a change in thermohaline circulation patterns caused the abrupt 4-5°C warming of deep and bottom waters at the Paleocene/Eocene boundary - the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) event. The combined set of records indicates a deep-water mass common to the North and South Atlantic, Southern and Indian oceans characterized by mean εNd values of ∼ -8.7, and different water masses found in the central Pacific Ocean (εNd ∼ -4.3) and Caribbean Sea (εNd ∼ 1.2). The geographic pattern of Nd isotopic values before and during the PETM suggests a Southern Ocean deep-water formation site for deep and bottom waters in the Atlantic and Indian ocean basins. The Nd data do not contain evidence for a change in the composition of deep waters prior to the onset of the PETM. This finding is consistent with the pattern of warming established by recently published stable isotope records, suggesting that deep- and bottom-water warming during the PETM was gradual and the consequence of surface-water warming in regions of downwelling.
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U2 - 10.1016/S0012-821X(03)00096-7
DO - 10.1016/S0012-821X(03)00096-7
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0038138001
SN - 0012-821X
VL - 209
SP - 309
EP - 322
JO - Earth and Planetary Science Letters
JF - Earth and Planetary Science Letters
IS - 3-4
ER -