Variability in climate and productivity during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum in the western Tethys (Forada section)

Abstract. The Forada section (northeastern Italy) provides a continuous, expanded deep-sea record of the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) in the central-western Tethys. We combine a new, high-resolution, benthic foraminiferal assemblage record with published calcareous plankton, mineralogical and biomarker data to document climatic and environmental changes across the PETM, highlighting the benthic foraminiferal extinction event (BEE). The onset of the PETM, occurring  ∼ 30 kyr after a precursor event, is marked by a thin, black, barren clay layer, possibly representing a brief pulse of anoxia and carbonate dissolution. The BEE occurred within the 10 cm interval including this layer. During the first 3.5 kyr of the PETM, several agglutinated recolonizing taxa show rapid species turnover, indicating a highly unstable, CaCO₃-corrosive environment. Calcareous taxa reappeared after this interval, and the next  ∼9 kyr were characterized by rapid alternation of peaks in abundance of various calcareous and agglutinated recolonizers. These observations suggest that synergistic stressors, including deepwater CaCO₃ corrosiveness, low oxygenation, and high environmental instability caused the extinction. Combined faunal and biomarker data (BIT index, higher plant n-alkane average chain length) and the high abundance of the mineral chlorite suggest that erosion and weathering increased strongly at the onset of the PETM, due to an overall wet climate with invigorated hydrological cycle, which led to storm flood events carrying massive sediment discharge into the Belluno Basin. This interval was followed by the core of the PETM, characterized by four precessionally paced cycles in CaCO₃ %, hematite %, δ¹³C, abundant occurrence of opportunistic benthic foraminiferal taxa, and calcareous nannofossil and planktonic foraminiferal taxa typical of high-productivity environments, radiolarians, and lower δD_n-alkanes. We interpret these cycles as reflecting alternation between an overall arid climate, characterized by strong winds and intense upwelling, and an overall humid climate, with abundant rains and high sediment delivery (including refractory organic carbon) from land. Precessionally paced marl–limestone couplets occur throughout the recovery interval of the carbon isotope excursion (CIE) and up to 10 m above it, suggesting that these wet–dry cycles persisted, though at declining intensity, after the peak PETM. Enhanced climate extremes at mid-latitudes might have been a direct response to the massive CO₂ input in the ocean atmosphere system at the Paleocene–Eocene transition, and may have had a primary role in restoring the Earth system to steady state.