Abstract
An analysis of calcareous dinoflagellate cysts has been carried out on sixteen samples from across the K/Pg boundary interval from Deep Sea Drilling Project Site 577 situated on Shatsky Rise in the western North Pacific. This is the first time that a detailed study of this microfossil group has been undertaken from deep sea sediments of Late Cretaceous–early Paleocene age in the North Pacific realm. Eight species of calcareous dinoflagellate cysts were found to comprise low diversity assemblages of which half are representative of extant taxa. The most pronounced bioevent is that of Cervisiella operculata reaching its highest proportions at the K/Pg boundary transition underscoring the utility and cosmopolitan distribution of the species with its acme as a marker for the earliest Danian. We also identify an indirect sea surface paleotemperature signal as represented by variance in wall thickness in two distinct morphotypes of Thoracosphaera heimii (morphotypes A and B). The cyst concentrations and relative abundances of these taxa are interpreted to reflect the late Maastrichtian warming event and subsequent late Maastrichtian cooling phase prior to the interval of gradual warming in the early Danian marked by the opportunistic capitalization of Cervisiella operculata during a time of ocean recovery following the terminal Cretaceous.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 102057 |
| Journal | Marine Micropaleontology |
| Volume | 168 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors would like to thank the staff of the International Ocean Discovery Program's Gulf Coast Repository, Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas, USA), for supplying the DSDP material used in this study. Gratitude is also extended to Dr. Elaine Humphrey, Advanced Microscopy Facility, University of Victoria (Victoria, BC, Canada), for lending technical assistance with SEM imaging and Dr. Jon Husson, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria (Victoria, BC, Canada), for discussions relating to data presentation. The manuscript benefited greatly from feedback provided by Dr. Manuel Vieira, Shell UK Ltd. and an anonymous reviewer. Funding for this project was provided by the National Science and Engineering Research Council, Ottawa, Canada, the Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A. and the Paleontological Research Institute, Ithaka, New York, U.S.A.
Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank the staff of the International Ocean Discovery Program's Gulf Coast Repository, Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas, USA), for supplying the DSDP material used in this study. Gratitude is also extended to Dr. Elaine Humphrey, Advanced Microscopy Facility, University of Victoria (Victoria, BC, Canada), for lending technical assistance with SEM imaging and Dr. Jon Husson, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria (Victoria, BC, Canada), for discussions relating to data presentation. The manuscript benefited greatly from feedback provided by Dr. Manuel Vieira, Shell UK Ltd., and an anonymous reviewer. Funding for this project was provided by the National Science and Engineering Research Council, Ottawa, Canada, the Geological Society of America , Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A., and the Paleontological Research Institute , Ithaka, New York, U.S.A.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
Keywords
- Cretaceous
- Danian
- DSDP
- Pacific Ocean
- Paleocene
- Paleogene
- Shatsky rise