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Paleoceanography of the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Western Interior Seaway of North America: Evidence from Sr and O Isotopes

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Paleoceanography of the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Western Interior Seaway of North America: Evidence from Sr and O Isotopes Available online at www.sciencedirect.com R Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 191 (2003) 45^64 www.elsevier.com/locate/palaeo Paleoceanography of the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Western Interior Seaway of North America: evidence from Sr and O isotopes J. Kirk Cochran a;Ã, Neil H. Landman b, Karl K. Turekian c, Annie Michard d, Daniel P. Schrag e a Marine Sciences Research Center, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5000, USA b American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024, USA c Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8109, USA d CEREGE, Europo“le Me¤diterrane¤en de l’Arbois, BP 80, 13545 Aix-en-Provence, France e Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA02138, USA Received11 October 2001; receivedin revisedform 15 October 2002; accepted8 November 2002 Abstract Well-preservedfossils of the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway (WIS) of North America have been analyzed for Sr concentration and Sr and O isotopes in order to decipher paleosalinities and paleotemperatures. The samples are from four biofacies within the Seaway (late Maastrichtian): offshore Interior (Pierre Shale), nearshore Interior (Fox Hills Formation), brackish (reduced salinity; Fox Hills Formation) and freshwater (Hell Creek Formation). Samples were also obtainedfrom the Severn Formation of Maryland(consideredtobe representative of the open ocean). All biofacies (except the freshwater) are demonstrably within the Jeletzkytes nebrascensis ammonite zone ( 6 1 Ma duration). The 87Sr/86Sr ratios show significant andsystematic decreasesfrom marine (mean þ 1 S.D. = 0.707839 þ 0.000024) to brackish facies (mean þ 1 S.D. = 0.707677 þ 0.000036), consistent with dilution by freshwater with a lower 87Sr/86Sr ratio than seawater. Such variation disallows using the 87Sr/86Sr ratios of fossil shell material to assign ages to fossils from the Late Cretaceous WIS without knowledge of the salinity in which the organism grew. The Sr isotope ratios for scaphitidammonites within a single biofacies are similar to each other and different from those for scaphites in other biofacies, implying that these organisms are restricted in their distribution during life. The 87Sr/86Sr values of freshwater unionidmussels range widelyandare not compatible with the freshwater endmember 87Sr/86Sr ratio requiredby the trendin 87Sr/86Sr vs. biofacies establishedfrom the other samples. Paleosalinities for the biofacies are estimatedto range from 35 x in the open marine to a minimum of 20x in the brackish, based on the presence of cephalopods in all four facies and the known salinity tolerance of modern cephalopods. Producing reasonable 87Sr/86Sr values for the freshwater endmember of a 87Sr/86Sr vs. 1/[Sr] plot requires a Sr concentration 0.2^0.5 that of seawater for the dominant freshwater input to the WIS. Such high Sr concentrations (relative to seawater) are not observedin modernrivers, andwe suggest that the brackish environment in the WIS arose through the mixing of freshwater andseawater in a nearshore aquifer system. Reactions of the solution with aquifer solids in this ‘subterranean estuary’ [Moore, Mar. Chem. 65 (1999) 111^125] produced brackish water with the Sr concentration andisotopic composition recordedinthe brackish biofacies. N18O values of the fossils * Corresponding author. Fax: +1-631-632-3066. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.K. Cochran). 0031-0182 / 02 / $ ^ see front matter ß 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S0031-0182(02)00642-9 PALAEO 2988 3-1-03 46 J.K. Cochran et al. / Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 191 (2003) 45^64 show decreases from the marine to brackish biofacies consistent with increasing temperatures (from V13 to 23‡C) or, if temperatures were relatively constant, to a decrease in the N18O of the water in which the shell formed. The latter interpretation is consistent with less-than-fully marine salinities in the nearshore biofacies, but both changes in temperature andthe isotopic composition of the water may have occurredin this environment. ß 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Cretaceous; Western Interior Seaway; North America; scaphites; strontium; oxygen; isotopes; paleoceanography 1. Introduction quently transportedinto the basin interior under- lying colder, less saline intermediate waters. The Cretaceous Periodwas characterizedby the An additional paleoenvironmental indicator is existence of broadcontinental seaways that con- the ratio of 87Sr to 86Sr in shell material. The 87Sr/ nectedthe worldoceans. In North America, the 86Sr ratio in the open ocean re£ects dominantly Western Interior Seaway (WIS) connectedthe Bo- the input of Sr from continents via rivers and real andTethys oceans. During the late Maas- mantle-derived sources such as hydrothermal trichtian this seaway was closedto the north vents (Brass, 1976; Albare'de et al., 1981; Palmer anddisappearedaltogetherby the endof the Cre- and Edmond, 1989). Variations in the 87Sr/86Sr taceous. Because these epicontinental seas have no ratio over geologic time are due to variations in modern analogs as far as magnitude and setting the relative importance of these Sr sources, as well are involved, very little is known about their as evolution in the Earth’s 87Sr/86Sr ratio due to oceanography. In particular, distributions of 87Rb decay. Such variations are recorded in the water masses as de¢ned by temperature and salin- 87Sr/86Sr of marine carbonates, which are charac- ity variations are poorly characterizedalthough teristically low in Rb, andthe Phanerozoic evolu- reconstructions of WIS paleoceanography andpa- tion of the 87Sr/86Sr ratio in seawater has been leocirculation have been attempted(e.g. Hay et well documented using these deposits (Peterman al., 1993). One approach to reconstructing paleo- et al., 1970; Dasch andBiscaye, 1971; Brass, temperatures andpaleosalinities in such environ- 1976; Veizer andCompston, 1974; Burke et al., ments is through the recordof geochemical trac- 1982; Hess et al., 1986, DePaolo, 1986; Martin ers that are proxies for these parameters andare andMacdougall, 1991; Veizer et al., 1999 ). In incorporatedin the calcium carbonate shells of modern ocean^river systems, the 87Sr/86Sr ratio organisms. For example, the determination of of rivers can be signi¢cantly di¡erent from that N18O in shell material as an index of paleotemper- of seawater (0.70916), ranging from values much atures has been appliedto a variety of systems lower (e.g. rivers entering San Francisco Bay; In- since Urey (1947) initially proposedthat the gram andSloan, 1992 ) to much greater than that N18O values of carbonates are a function of both of seawater (e.g. rivers entering the Baltic Sea; the temperature and N18O of the water in which Andersson et al., 1992, 1994). In the estuarine the carbonate formed. In the WIS, Tourtelot and andcoastal environment, the mixture of fresh Rye (1969) and Wright (1987) among others mea- and salt water produces a gradient in 87Sr/86Sr sured N18O values in well-preservedshell material. ratios that can be recorded by organisms living Calculatedpaleotemperatures for benthic organ- in a given salinity. Such gradients in 87Sr/86Sr isms rangedup to 40‡C andwere consideredun- vs. salinity are seen in San Francisco Bay and realistically high. Moreover, Wright (1987) no- the Baltic Sea, for example (Ingram andSloan, ticedisotopic di¡erences in epifauna compared 1992; Andersson et al., 1992). Thus the 87Sr/86Sr with nekton andinfauna andarguedthat the ratio may be usedto reconstruct paleosalinities in WIS hadan unusual salinity structure, with areas where salinity gradients, as well as di¡eren- warm saline water formedby evaporation in the ces in Sr isotope ratios between freshwater and shallow eastern portion of the sea andsubse- seawater exist. PALAEO 2988 3-1-03 J.K. Cochran et al. / Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 191 (2003) 45^64 47 We present data for oxygen, carbon and stron- monites, nautiloids and belemnites are repre- tium isotopes andstrontium concentrations in sentedin the fauna. Specimens of two ammonite well-preservedshell material from within the species (J. nebrascensis and Sphenodiscus lobatus) WIS andfrom coeval material collectedfrom were analyzedfrom all four paleoenvironments. the Atlantic Coastal Plain of North America. Additionally, freshwater unionid bivalves from The samples were collectedin the Jeletzkytes ne- the basal Hell Creek Formation were analyzed brascensis ammonite zone, representing 9 1Ma in an e¡ort to constrain the 87Sr/86Sr ratio in in the late Maastrichtian, around67 Ma BP freshwater at that time. However, the Hell Creek (Waage, 1968; Landman and Waage, 1993; samples lack the biostratigraphic control repre- Kau¡man et al., 1993; Kennedy et al., 1998), sentedby the other samples. All samples are de- from the Pierre Shale, Fox Hills andHell Creek positedin the collections of the Yale Peabody Formations in South Dakota. Because of the ex- Museum, American Museum of Natural History, tensive paleoenvironmental reconstructions for andthe US National Museum. Three samples of this region (Gill andCobban, 1966; Waage, the rock making up the presumedambient terrain 1968), it is possible to separate the samples a pri- also were taken for determination of Sr isotope ori into environments corresponding to o¡shore ratio andconcentration. These samples included Interior, nearshore Interior andbrackish (less the Elk Butte andMobridge members
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