The origin of carbon isotope vital effects in coccolith calcite

H. L. O. McClelland (), J. Bruggeman, M. Hermoso and R. E. M. Rickaby
Additional contact information
H. L. O. McClelland: University of Oxford
J. Bruggeman: Plymouth Marine Laboratory
M. Hermoso: University of Oxford
R. E. M. Rickaby: University of Oxford

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Abstract Calcite microfossils are widely used to study climate and oceanography in Earth’s geological past. Coccoliths, readily preserved calcite plates produced by a group of single-celled surface-ocean dwelling algae called coccolithophores, have formed a significant fraction of marine sediments since the Late Triassic. However, unlike the shells of foraminifera, their zooplankton counterparts, coccoliths remain underused in palaeo-reconstructions. Precipitated in an intracellular chemical and isotopic microenvironment, coccolith calcite exhibits large and enigmatic departures from the isotopic composition of abiogenic calcite, known as vital effects. Here we show that the calcification to carbon fixation ratio determines whether coccolith calcite is isotopically heavier or lighter than abiogenic calcite, and that the size of the deviation is determined by the degree of carbon utilization. We discuss the theoretical potential for, and current limitations of, coccolith-based CO2 paleobarometry, that may eventually facilitate use of the ubiquitous and geologically extensive sedimentary archive.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14511 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms14511

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14511

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().