Triumph and tribulation for shallow water fauna during the Paleocene–Eocene transition; insights from the United Arab Emirates
Beasley, C; Cotton, L; Al-Suwaidi, A; et al.LeVay, L; Sluijs, A; Ullmann, CV; Hesselbo, SP; Littler, K
Date: 22 January 2021
Article
Journal
Newsletters on Stratigraphy
Publisher
Borntraeger Science Publishers
Abstract
The Paleocene–Eocene transition was a time of short-term rapid climatic and biotic change,
superimposed on a long-term warming trend. The response of shallow tropical carbonate systems to
past rapid warming is important to understand in the context of ongoing and future anthropogenic
global warming. Larger benthic foraminifera ...
The Paleocene–Eocene transition was a time of short-term rapid climatic and biotic change,
superimposed on a long-term warming trend. The response of shallow tropical carbonate systems to
past rapid warming is important to understand in the context of ongoing and future anthropogenic
global warming. Larger benthic foraminifera (LBF) were abundant and important components of
shallow water ecosystems throughout the early Paleogene and are sensitive to environmental
change, making them ideal organisms to track shallow marine biodiversity. Furthermore, through the
use of integrated bio- and chemostratigraphy it is possible to correlate the shallow (<100 m) and deep
water realms to create a regional stratigraphic framework for the time period. Here we present a new
LBF biostratigraphic and high-resolution carbonate carbon isotopic record spanning the Paleocene–
Eocene transition from the onshore sub-surface of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Results show a
turnover event in the LBF assemblage during the early Eocene, wherein there are a number of first
and last occurrences of species. However, assemblages remain generally stable coincident with the
large negative carbon isotope excursion interpreted to be the onset of the Paleocene–Eocene thermal
maximum (PETM). Turnover in the LBF assemblage in the early Eocene likely occurred due to the
crossing of a long-term climatic and oceanographic threshold. The impacts of this long-term climatic
change on the overall biotic assemblage at this site are significant, with LBF outcompeting a
previously diverse community of corals, gastropods, and bivalves to become the dominant carbonate
producers through the Paleocene–Eocene transition. Despite this, modern studies suggest that LBF
are not immune to impacts of anthropogenic climate change, perhaps due to the significantly higher
rates of change in the modern compared to the Paleocene–Eocene transition.
Camborne School of Mines
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