Quantified abundance of magnetofossils at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary from synchrotron-based transmission X-ray microscopy.

ABSTRACT: The Paleocene-Eocene boundary (∼55.8 million years ago) is marked by an abrupt negative carbon isotope excursion (CIE) that coincides with an oxygen isotope decrease interpreted as the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum. Biogenic magnetite (Fe3O4) in the form of giant (micron-sized) spearhead-like and spindle-like magnetofossils, as well as nano-sized magnetotactic bacteria magnetosome chains, have been reported in clay-rich sediments in the New Jersey Atlantic Coastal Plain and were thought to account for the distinctive single-domain magnetic properties of these sediments. Uncalibrated strong field magnet extraction techniques have been typically used to provide material for scanning and transmission electron microscopic imaging of these magnetic particles, whose concentration in the natur

SUBMITTER: Wang H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4611651 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature