Ice Sheet Expansion in the Cretaceous Greenhouse World

Overview

Journal Fundam Res

Date 2024 Dec 30

PMID 39734516

Authors

Tianyang Wang

Songlin He

Qinghai Zhang

Lin Ding

Alexander Farnsworth

Fulong Cai

Chao Wang

Jing Xie

Guobiao Li

Jiani Sheng

Yahui Yue

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Globally elevated temperatures during the Cretaceous extreme greenhouse climate interval were punctuated by the Valanginian cooling event, which was characterized by a positive carbon isotope excursion, global cooling, and a glacial event approximately at 135 Ma. Disentangling ocean temperature and continental ice volume trends enables us to better understand climate fluctuations over deep time. We investigated the ocean temperature-ice sheet dynamics of glaciation events that occurred in the Cretaceous greenhouse world. New clumped isotope and O data from sites in the Tethyan Ocean show that seawater temperatures decreased by 5-6 °C, consistent with the development of glacial periods, and maximum ice volumes about half the size of present-day Antarctica. This cooling event provides a counter-example to other Mesozoic climate transitions driven by changes in atmospheric greenhouse gas contents. Our results emphasize the importance of quantitatively reconstructing continental ice volume, providing further support for exploring deep-time Earth climate dynamics.

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