Spatiotemporal changes in riverine input into the Eocene North Sea revealed by strontium isotope and barium analysis of bivalve shells.

ABSTRACT: Reconstructing hydrological conditions of past warm periods, such as the Eocene 'hot house' provides empirical data to compare to state of the art climate models. However, reconstructing these changes in deep time is challenging, for example, given the complex interplay between evapotranspiration, precipitation and runoff. As a proxy for past changes in these hydrological systems, the dynamics of fresh water input into marginal seas can be used to identify the spatiotemporal distribution of riverine runoff. Elemental barium (Ba) and radiogenic strontium (⁸⁷Sr) are, depending on the amount of runoff and the background geology of the catchment area, typically enriched in river waters in comparison to seawater and can thus be utilized to determine changes in riverine fresh water di

SUBMITTER: Kniest JF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11579471 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature