Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences Publications

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Browsing Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences Publications by Author "Agnini, Claudia"

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    Eocene (46–44 Ma) Onset of Australia‐Pacific Plate Motion in the Southwest Pacific Inferred From Stratigraphy in New Caledonia and New Zealand
    (Wiley, 2020) Dallanave, Edoardo; Maurizot, Pierre; Agnini, Claudia; Sutherland, Rupert; Hollis, Christopher J.; Collot, Julien; Dickens, Gerald R.; Bachtadse, Valerian; Strogen, Dominic; Morgans, Hugh E.G.
    The Pacific plate circuit went through a complex reorganization during the early to middle Eocene, approximately coinciding with the onset of subduction along the western Pacific margin. However, the timing and dynamics of this change in the southwest Pacific and evolution of subduction beneath the Tonga‐Kermadec Arc are not fully resolved. We present magneto‐biostratigraphic data from an early to middle Eocene sedimentary section exposed in the Koumac‐Gomen area, New Caledonia, which is an emerged portion of the Norfolk Ridge. The 260 m‐thick succession contains a transition from pelagic micrite to terrigenous‐rich calciturbidite that is observed regionally in New Caledonia and which is interpreted to represent a shift from sedimentation on a stable submarine plateau to slope formation developed under a convergent tectonic regime. The stratigraphic contact between pelagic micrite and overlying calciturbidite is not exposed, but our magnetic polarity‐based chronology constrains the age of transition to 46–44 Ma, in agreement with the 45.3 Ma age recently obtained from the Noumea area in southern New Caledonia. We integrate records from New Caledonia with recent magnetostratigraphic data from South Island, New Zealand, where marked variations in terrigenous input occurred during the early and middle Eocene. Synchronous sedimentary changes in the southwest Pacific occurred at the same time as onset of rapid seafloor spreading south of Australia and New Zealand. We infer that the underlying cause of stratigraphic change was inception of slip at a new configuration of the Australia‐Pacific plate boundary, which evolved into the Tonga‐Kermadec subduction system.
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    Stable isotope and calcareous nannofossil assemblage record of the late Paleocene and early Eocene (Cicogna section)
    (Copernicus Publications, 2016) Agnini, Claudia; Spofforth, David J.A.; Dickens, Gerald R.; Rio, Domenico; Pälike, Heiko; Backman, Jan; Muttoni, Giovanni; Dallanave, Edoardo
    We present records of stable carbon and oxygen isotopes, CaCO3 content, and changes in calcareous nannofossil assemblages across an 81 m thick section of upper Paleocene–lower Eocene marine sedimentary rocks now exposed along the Cicogna Stream in northeast Italy. The studied stratigraphic section represents sediment accumulation in a bathyal hemipelagic setting from approximately 57.5 to 52.2 Ma, a multi-million-year time interval characterized by perturbations in the global carbon cycle and changes in calcareous nannofossil assemblages. The bulk carbonate δ13C profile for the Cicogna section, once placed on a common timescale, resembles that at several other locations across the world, and includes both a long-term drop in δ13C and multiple short-term carbon isotope excursions (CIEs). This precise correlation of widely separated δ13C records in marine sequences results from temporal changes in the carbon composition of the exogenic carbon cycle. However, diagenesis has likely modified the δ13C record at Cicogna, an interpretation supported by variations in bulk carbonate δ18O, which do not conform to expectations for a primary signal. The record of CaCO3 content reflects a combination of carbonate dilution and dissolution, as also inferred at other sites. Our detailed documentation and statistical analysis of calcareous nannofossil assemblages show major differences before, during and after the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. Other CIEs in our lower Paleogene section do not exhibit such a distinctive change; instead, these events are sometimes characterized by variations restricted to a limited number of taxa and transient shifts in the relative abundance of primary assemblage components. Both long-lasting and short-lived modifications to calcareous nannofossil assemblages preferentially affected nannoliths or holococcoliths such as Discoaster, Fasciculithus, Rhomboaster/Tribrachiatus, Sphenolithus and Zygrhablithus, which underwent distinct variations in abundance as well as permanent evolutionary changes in terms of appearances and disappearances. By contrast, placoliths such as Coccolithus and Toweius, which represent the main component of the assemblages, were characterized by a gradual decline in abundance over time. Comparisons of detailed nannofossil assemblage records at the Cicogna section and at ODP Site 1262 support the idea that variations in the relative and absolute abundances, even some minor changes, were globally synchronous. An obvious link is through climate forcing and carbon cycling, although the linkages between variations in calcareous nannoplankton, changes in δ13C records and oceanography will need additional work.