Relation of Phanerozoic stable isotope excursions to climate, bacterial metabolism, and major extinctions.

ABSTRACT: Conspicuous global stable carbon isotope excursions that are recorded in marine sedimentary rocks of Phanerozoic age and were associated with major extinctions have generally paralleled global stable oxygen isotope excursions. All of these phenomena are therefore likely to share a common origin through global climate change. Exceptional patterns for carbon isotope excursions resulted from massive carbon burial during warm intervals of widespread marine anoxic conditions. The many carbon isotope excursions that parallel those for oxygen isotopes can to a large degree be accounted for by the Q10 pattern of respiration for bacteria: As temperature changed along continental margins, where ∼90% of marine carbon burial occurs today, rates of remineralization of isotopically light carbon must hav

SUBMITTER: Stanley SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2984178 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature