Western North Atlantic Palaeogene and Cretaceous Palaeoceanography

Palaeogene and Cretaceous palaeoceanography has been the focus of intense international interest in the last few years, spurred by deep ocean drilling at Blake Nose in the North Atlantic as well as the need to use past climate change as input for modelling future climate change. This book brings together a number of review papers that describe ancient oceans and unique events in the Earth’s climatic history and evolution of biota. The papers show evidence of periods characterized by exceptional global warmth such as the Late Palaeocene Thermal Maximum and Cretaceous anoxic events. Geochemical records and modelling will make the reader aware that these periods were forced by greenhouse gases. This information is essential for understanding the response of the ocean—climate system to the current input of fossil fuels. In this sense, the book contributes to the understanding of fundamental aspects of Earth’s climate, the carbon cycle, and marine ecosystems. A number of papers describe massive mass wasting deposits resulting from the energy released by the bolide impact at the Cretaceous—Tertiary boundary as well as the geochemistry of the boundary itself. Additional papers cover aspects of cyclostratigraphy and biostratigraphy of Palaeogene and Cretaceous records.

This book will be of interest to a broad audience of Earth Scientists interested in Palaeogene—Cretaceous palaeoceanography, extreme climate modelling, Cretaceous—Tertiary boundary, Late Palaeocene Thermal Maximum, Cretaceous anoxic events, as well as those specifically interested in radiolarian, dinoflagellate and coccolithophorid stratigraphy.