Latest Maastrichtian dinocyst and benthic foraminiferal records of Bass River, Meirs Farm and Search Farm sediment cores, New Jersey, USA

DOI

Phytoplankton responses to a ~ 350 kiloyear long phase of gradual late Maastrichtian (latest-Cretaceous) global warming starting at ~ 66.4 Ma can provide valuable insights into the long-term influences of global change on marine ecosystems. Here we perform micropaleontological analyses on three cores from the New Jersey paleoshelf, to assess the response of phytoplankton using cyst-forming dinoflagellates and benthic ecosystems using benthic foraminifera. Our records show that this Latest Maastrichtian Warming Event (LMWE), characterized by a 4.0 ± 1.3 ⁰C warming of sea-surface waters on the New Jersey paleoshelf, resulted in a succession of nearly monospecific dinoflagellate cyst assemblages, dominated by the species Palynodinium grallator. This response, likely triggered by the combination of warmer and seasonally thermally-stratified seas, appears to have been more intense at offshore sites than at nearshore sites. The LMWE, and related dinoflagellate response, is associated with an impoverished benthic ecosystem. A wider geographic survey of literature data reveals that the dominance of P. grallator is a marker for the LMWE throughout the northern mid-latitudes. While the dinocyst assemblage returned to a stable, normal marine community in the last tens of thousands of years of the Maastrichtian, benthic foraminiferal diversity remained slightly suppressed. Increased ecosystem stress during the latest Maastrichtian potentially primed global ecosystems for the subsequent mass extinction following the K-Pg boundary Chicxulub impact.

Supplement to: Vellekoop, Johan; Woelders, Lineke; Sluijs, Appy; Miller, Kenneth G; Speijer, Robert P (2019): Phytoplankton community disruption caused by latest Cretaceous global warming. Biogeosciences, 16(21), 4201-4210

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.907070
Related Identifier IsSupplementTo https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-4201-2019
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.907070
Provenance
Creator Vellekoop, Johan (ORCID: 0000-0001-6977-693X); Woelders, Lineke; Sluijs, Appy ORCID logo; Miller, Kenneth G ORCID logo; Speijer, Robert P ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2019
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Supplementary Publication Series of Datasets; Collection
Format application/zip
Size 6 datasets
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (-74.527W, 39.612S, -74.046E, 40.310N)
Temporal Coverage Begin 1996-10-18T00:00:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2008-09-11T00:00:00Z