Paleocene methane seep and wood-fall marine environments from Spitsbergen, SvalbardShow others and affiliations
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Abstract [en]
A recently discovered Paleocene seep locality from Fossildalen onSpitsbergen,Svalbard,is described. This is one of a very few seep communities of the latest Cretaceous–earliest Palaeogene age, and the best preserved Paleocene seep community known so far. The seep 2 carbonates and associated fossils have been first identified in museum collections, and subsequently sampled in the field. The carbonates are exclusively ex-situand come fromtheoffshore siltstones of the Basilika Formation. Isotopically light composition (δ13C values approaching -50‰ V-PDB), and characteristic petrographic textures of the carbonates combined with the isotopically lightarchaeal lipid are consistent with the formation at fossil hydrocarbon seep. The invertebrate fauna associated with the carbonates is of moderate diversity (16 species) and has a shallow water affinity. It containsa species of the thyasirid genus Conchocele, common in other seeps of that age. The finding sheds new light onto the history of seepage on Svalbard, and onto the evolutionand ecologyof seep faunas during the latest Cretaceous–earliest Palaeogenetime interval.
Keywords [en]
Chemosynthesis-based environments, Conchocele, Ecology, Hydrocarbon seeps, Paleocene, Svalbard
National Category
Natural Sciences
Research subject
Ecosystems and species history
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:nrm:diva-2276DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2016.08.037OAI: oai:DiVA.org:nrm-2276DiVA, id: diva2:1082630
Note
The funding for this project was provided by the Polish National Science Centre (NCN) research grant no. 2014/15/B/ST10/04886 entitled ‘The influence of Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum on oceanic chemosynthesis-based ecosystems’. The fieldwork on Svalbard and the research was registered in the Research in Svalbard database under a number RiS 10173 ‘The influence of Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum on oceanic chemosynthesis-based ecosystems’
2017-03-172017-03-172017-05-04Bibliographically approved