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- Klages, J. P., et al.
(författare)
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Temperate rainforests near the South Pole during peak Cretaceous warmth
- 2020
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 580:7801, s. 81-86
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The mid-Cretaceous period was one of the warmest intervals of the past 140millionyears1–5, driven by atmospheric carbon dioxide levels of around 1,000parts per million by volume6. In the near absence of proximal geological records from south of the Antarctic Circle, it is disputed whether polar ice could exist under such environmental conditions. Here we use a sedimentary sequence recovered from the West Antarctic shelf—the southernmost Cretaceous record reported so far—and show that a temperate lowland rainforest environment existed at a palaeolatitude of about 82°S during the Turonian–Santonian age (92 to 83millionyearsago). This record contains an intact 3-metre-long network of in situ fossil roots embedded in a mudstone matrix containing diverse pollen and spores. A climate model simulation shows that the reconstructed temperate climate at this high latitude requires a combination of both atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations of 1,120–1,680parts per million by volume and a vegetated land surface without major Antarctic glaciation, highlighting the important cooling effect exerted by ice albedo under high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. © 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
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| 2. |
- Wienberg, C., et al.
(författare)
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The giant Mauritanian cold-water coral mound province: Oxygen control on coral mound formation
- 2018
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Ingår i: Quaternary Science Reviews. - : Elsevier BV. - 0277-3791. ; 185, s. 135-152
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The largest coherent cold-water coral (CWC) mound province in the Atlantic Ocean exists along the Mauritanian margin, where up to 100 m high mounds extend over a distance of similar to 400 km, arranged in two slope-parallel chains in 400-550 m water depth. Additionally, CWCs are present in the numerous submarine canyons with isolated coral mounds being developed on some canyon flanks. Seventy-seven Uranium-series coral ages were assessed to elucidate the timing of CWC colonisation and coral mound development along the Mauritanian margin for the last similar to 120,000 years. Our results show that CWCs were present on the mounds during the Last Interglacial, though in low numbers corresponding to coral mound aggradation rates of 16 cm kyr(-1). Most prolific periods for CWC growth are identified for the last glacial and deglaciation, resulting in enhanced mound aggradation (>1000 cm kyr(-1)), before mound formation stagnated along the entire margin with the onset of the Holocene. Until today, the Mauritanian mounds are in a dormant state with only scarce CWC growth. In the canyons, live CWCs are abundant since the Late Holocene at least. Thus, the canyons may serve as a refuge to CWCs potentially enabling the observed modest re-colonisation pulse on the mounds along the open slope. The timing and rate of the pre-Holocene coral mound aggradation, and the cessation of mound formation varied between the individual mounds, which was likely the consequence of vertical/lateral changes in water mass structure that placed the mounds near or out of oxygen-depleted waters, respectively. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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