Extreme but short-lived hyperthermal events linked to volcanism and the emission of vast quantities of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have punctuated the last 250 Ma of Earth history. Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary records archive the profound consequences of these abrupt climate perturbations. These include amplified positive climate and biogeochemical feedbacks in both marine and terrestrial systems, leading to environmental stress and biological crises. Understanding the geological and climatic conditions, palaeoecological responses, and biogeochemical dynamics across these events is of key scientific interest. Through examining these episodes via interdisciplinary integration of modern techniques, these events can also serve as potential analogues to inform possible outcomes of ongoing anthropogenic warming, and the mechanisms that enable climate stabilization and environmental recovery afterwards.
In this Research Topic, we welcome papers that document the environmental instability and biogeochemical changes in ancient Earth surface environments during episodes of thermal maxima. This Research Topic is a contribution from three international collaborative projects with a common emphasis on the Mesozoic-Paleogene climate and environment:
1. NSFC Basic Science Center Program “Continental Evolution and Earth's Monsoon System”;
2. IGCP 739 “The Mesozoic–Paleogene hyperthermal events”;
3. ICDP and NERC funded “Early Jurassic Earth System and Timescale” (JET) project.
For this Research Topic we welcome interdisciplinary approaches comprising stratigraphy, sedimentology, paleontology, geochemistry and Earth system modeling of these events. The individual papers should offer prescient insights from topics of sedimentary processes, biotic and paleoecological changes, aquatic redox chemistry and nutrient cycling, climate and biogeochemical feedbacks, continental weathering and the hydrological cycle, paleogeographical and depositional environment reconstruction, stratigraphic correlation and timescales during these hyperthermal events.
Extreme but short-lived hyperthermal events linked to volcanism and the emission of vast quantities of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have punctuated the last 250 Ma of Earth history. Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary records archive the profound consequences of these abrupt climate perturbations. These include amplified positive climate and biogeochemical feedbacks in both marine and terrestrial systems, leading to environmental stress and biological crises. Understanding the geological and climatic conditions, palaeoecological responses, and biogeochemical dynamics across these events is of key scientific interest. Through examining these episodes via interdisciplinary integration of modern techniques, these events can also serve as potential analogues to inform possible outcomes of ongoing anthropogenic warming, and the mechanisms that enable climate stabilization and environmental recovery afterwards.
In this Research Topic, we welcome papers that document the environmental instability and biogeochemical changes in ancient Earth surface environments during episodes of thermal maxima. This Research Topic is a contribution from three international collaborative projects with a common emphasis on the Mesozoic-Paleogene climate and environment:
1. NSFC Basic Science Center Program “Continental Evolution and Earth's Monsoon System”;
2. IGCP 739 “The Mesozoic–Paleogene hyperthermal events”;
3. ICDP and NERC funded “Early Jurassic Earth System and Timescale” (JET) project.
For this Research Topic we welcome interdisciplinary approaches comprising stratigraphy, sedimentology, paleontology, geochemistry and Earth system modeling of these events. The individual papers should offer prescient insights from topics of sedimentary processes, biotic and paleoecological changes, aquatic redox chemistry and nutrient cycling, climate and biogeochemical feedbacks, continental weathering and the hydrological cycle, paleogeographical and depositional environment reconstruction, stratigraphic correlation and timescales during these hyperthermal events.
