Articles | Volume 17, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-469-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-469-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Driving mechanisms of organic carbon burial in the Early Cretaceous South Atlantic Cape Basin (DSDP Site 361)
Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Cologne, 50674 Cologne, Germany
now at: Institute of Geosciences, Goethe University Frankfurt,
60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Sebastian Steinig
GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, 24148 Kiel,
Germany
now at: School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol,
Bristol, BS8 1SS, UK
Peter Hofmann
Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Cologne, 50674 Cologne, Germany
Matthias Lenz
Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Cologne, 50674 Cologne, Germany
Stephanie Kusch
Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Cologne, 50674 Cologne, Germany
Sascha Flögel
GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, 24148 Kiel,
Germany
Jens Olaf Herrle
Institute of Geosciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, 60438 Frankfurt am
Main, Germany
Christian Hallmann
Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, 07745 Jena, Germany
MARUM, University of Bremen, 28359 Bremen, Germany
Janet Rethemeyer
Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Cologne, 50674 Cologne, Germany
Haino Uwe Kasper
Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Cologne, 50674 Cologne, Germany
Thomas Wagner
Lyell Centre, School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and
Society, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, UK
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Lutz Schirrmeister, Margret C. Fuchs, Thomas Opel, Andrei Andreev, Frank Kienast, Andrea Schneider, Larisa Nazarova, Larisa Frolova, Svetlana Kuzmina, Tatiana Kuznetsova, Vladimir Tumskoy, Heidrun Matthes, Gerrit Lohmann, Guido Grosse, Viktor Kunitsky, Hanno Meyer, Heike H. Zimmermann, Ulrike Herzschuh, Thomas Böhmer, Stuart Umbo, Sevi Modestou, Sebastian F. M. Breitenbach, Anfisa Pismeniuk, Georg Schwamborn, Stephanie Kusch, and Sebastian Wetterich
Clim. Past, 21, 1143–1184, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-1143-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-1143-2025, 2025
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Geochronological, cryolithological, paleoecological, and modeling data reconstruct the Last Interglacial (LIG) climate around the New Siberian Islands and reveal significantly warmer conditions compared to today. The critical challenges in predicting future ecosystem responses lie in the fact that the land–ocean distribution during the LIG was markedly different from today, affecting the degree of continentality, which played a major role in modulating climate and ecosystem dynamics.
Babette A.A. Hoogakker, Catherine Davis, Yi Wang, Stephanie Kusch, Katrina Nilsson-Kerr, Dalton S. Hardisty, Allison Jacobel, Dharma Reyes Macaya, Nicolaas Glock, Sha Ni, Julio Sepúlveda, Abby Ren, Alexandra Auderset, Anya V. Hess, Katrin J. Meissner, Jorge Cardich, Robert Anderson, Christine Barras, Chandranath Basak, Harold J. Bradbury, Inda Brinkmann, Alexis Castillo, Madelyn Cook, Kassandra Costa, Constance Choquel, Paula Diz, Jonas Donnenfield, Felix J. Elling, Zeynep Erdem, Helena L. Filipsson, Sebastián Garrido, Julia Gottschalk, Anjaly Govindankutty Menon, Jeroen Groeneveld, Christian Hallmann, Ingrid Hendy, Rick Hennekam, Wanyi Lu, Jean Lynch-Stieglitz, Lélia Matos, Alfredo Martínez-García, Giulia Molina, Práxedes Muñoz, Simone Moretti, Jennifer Morford, Sophie Nuber, Svetlana Radionovskaya, Morgan Reed Raven, Christopher J. Somes, Anja S. Studer, Kazuyo Tachikawa, Raúl Tapia, Martin Tetard, Tyler Vollmer, Xingchen Wang, Shuzhuang Wu, Yan Zhang, Xin-Yuan Zheng, and Yuxin Zhou
Biogeosciences, 22, 863–957, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-863-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-863-2025, 2025
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Paleo-oxygen proxies can extend current records, constrain pre-anthropogenic baselines, provide datasets necessary to test climate models under different boundary conditions, and ultimately understand how ocean oxygenation responds on longer timescales. Here we summarize current proxies used for the reconstruction of Cenozoic seawater oxygen levels. This includes an overview of the proxy's history, how it works, resources required, limitations, and future recommendations.
Sebastian Steinig, Wolf Dummann, Peter Hofmann, Martin Frank, Wonsun Park, Thomas Wagner, and Sascha Flögel
Clim. Past, 20, 1537–1558, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1537-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1537-2024, 2024
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The opening of the South Atlantic Ocean, starting ~ 140 million years ago, had the potential to influence the global carbon cycle and climate trends. We use 36 climate model experiments to simulate the evolution of ocean circulation in this narrow basin. We test different combinations of palaeogeographic and atmospheric CO2 reconstructions with geochemical data to not only quantify the influence of individual processes on ocean circulation but also to find nonlinear interactions between them.
Rosie M. Sheward, Christina Gebühr, Jörg Bollmann, and Jens O. Herrle
Biogeosciences, 21, 3121–3141, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-3121-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-3121-2024, 2024
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How quickly do marine microorganisms respond to salinity stress? Our experiments with the calcifying marine plankton Emiliania huxleyi show that growth and cell morphology responded to salinity stress within as little as 24–48 hours, demonstrating that morphology and calcification are sensitive to salinity over a range of timescales. Our results have implications for understanding the short-term role of E. huxleyi in biogeochemical cycles and in size-based paleoproxies for salinity.
Stephanie Scheidt, Matthias Lenz, Ramon Egli, Dominik Brill, Martin Klug, Karl Fabian, Marlene M. Lenz, Raphael Gromig, Janet Rethemeyer, Bernd Wagner, Grigory Federov, and Martin Melles
Geochronology, 4, 87–107, https://doi.org/10.5194/gchron-4-87-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gchron-4-87-2022, 2022
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Levinson-Lessing Lake in northern central Siberia provides an exceptional opportunity to study the evolution of the Earth's magnetic field in the Arctic. This is the first study carried out at the lake that focus on the palaeomagnetic record. It presents the relative palaeointensity and palaeosecular variation of the upper 38 m of sediment core Co1401, spanning ~62 kyr. A comparable high-resolution record of this time does not exist in the Eurasian Arctic.
Fabian Kalks, Gabriel Noren, Carsten W. Mueller, Mirjam Helfrich, Janet Rethemeyer, and Axel Don
SOIL, 7, 347–362, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-7-347-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-7-347-2021, 2021
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Sedimentary rocks contain organic carbon that may end up as soil carbon. However, this source of soil carbon is overlooked and has not been quantified sufficiently. We analysed 10 m long sediment cores with three different sedimentary rocks. All sediments contain considerable amounts of geogenic carbon contributing 3 %–12 % to the total soil carbon below 30 cm depth. The low 14C content of geogenic carbon can result in underestimations of soil carbon turnover derived from 14C data.
Jens O. Herrle, Cornelia Spiegel, Andreas Läufer, and Jean-Pierre Paul de Vera
Polarforschung, 89, 51–55, https://doi.org/10.5194/polf-89-51-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/polf-89-51-2021, 2021
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The Geology and Geophysics working group is one the largest within the German Society of Polar Research. Here, we present an overview of the development of major scientific German polar research programs and locations as well as important white papers from the last decades. This work is based on the contributions of members and institutions, including the Alfred Wegener Institute, the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources and German Universities with polar research programs.
James F. Spray, Thomas Wagner, Juliane Bischoff, Sara Trojahn, Sevda Norouzi, Walter Hill, Julian Brasche, Leroy James, and Ryan Pereira
Biogeosciences Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2021-92, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2021-92, 2021
Manuscript not accepted for further review
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Sunlight and microbial activity break down river dissolved organic matter (DOM), releasing greenhouse gases, but are poorly understood in tropical headwaters. We incubated water in light and darkness, using novel methods to quantify changes in DOM concentration and character. Light removed up to 9 % of DOM, but microbial activity had a varied response. Importantly, light affected DOM compounds considered photo-resistant; likewise microbial activity degraded compounds thought to be bio-resistant.
Daniel J. Lunt, Fran Bragg, Wing-Le Chan, David K. Hutchinson, Jean-Baptiste Ladant, Polina Morozova, Igor Niezgodzki, Sebastian Steinig, Zhongshi Zhang, Jiang Zhu, Ayako Abe-Ouchi, Eleni Anagnostou, Agatha M. de Boer, Helen K. Coxall, Yannick Donnadieu, Gavin Foster, Gordon N. Inglis, Gregor Knorr, Petra M. Langebroek, Caroline H. Lear, Gerrit Lohmann, Christopher J. Poulsen, Pierre Sepulchre, Jessica E. Tierney, Paul J. Valdes, Evgeny M. Volodin, Tom Dunkley Jones, Christopher J. Hollis, Matthew Huber, and Bette L. Otto-Bliesner
Clim. Past, 17, 203–227, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-203-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-203-2021, 2021
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This paper presents the first modelling results from the Deep-Time Model Intercomparison Project (DeepMIP), in which we focus on the early Eocene climatic optimum (EECO, 50 million years ago). We show that, in contrast to previous work, at least three models (CESM, GFDL, and NorESM) produce climate states that are consistent with proxy indicators of global mean temperature and polar amplification, and they achieve this at a CO2 concentration that is consistent with the CO2 proxy record.
Patrick Wordell-Dietrich, Anja Wotte, Janet Rethemeyer, Jörg Bachmann, Mirjam Helfrich, Kristina Kirfel, Christoph Leuschner, and Axel Don
Biogeosciences, 17, 6341–6356, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-6341-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-6341-2020, 2020
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The release of CO2 from soils, known as soil respiration, plays a major role in the global carbon cycle. However, the contributions of different soil depths or the sources of soil CO2 have hardly been studied. We quantified the CO2 production for different soil layers (up to 1.5 m) in three soil profiles for 2 years. We found that 90 % of CO2 production occurs in the first 30 cm of the soil profile, and that the CO2 originated from young carbon sources, as revealed by radiocarbon measurements.
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Short summary
This study investigates the climatic mechanism that controlled the deposition of organic matter in the South Atlantic Cape Basin during the Early Cretaceous. The presented geochemical and climate modeling data suggest that fluctuations in riverine nutrient supply were the main driver of organic carbon burial on timescales < 1 Myr. Our results have implications for the understanding of Cretaceous atmospheric circulation patterns and climate-land-ocean interactions in emerging ocean basins.
This study investigates the climatic mechanism that controlled the deposition of organic matter...