Transient ocean warming and shifts in carbon reservoirs during the early Danian

A long-standing question in Paleogene climate concerns the frequency and mechanism of transient greenhouse gas-driven climate shifts (hyperthermals). The discovery of the greenhouse gas-driven Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; ∼ 55 Ma) has spawned a search for analogous events in other parts of the Paleogene record. On the basis of high-resolution bulk sediment and foraminiferal stable isotope analyses performed on three lower Danian sections of the Atlantic Ocean, we report the discovery of a possible greenhouse gas-driven climatic event in the earliest Paleogene. This event – that we term the Dan-C2 event – is characterized by a conspicuous double negative excursion in δ13C and δ18O, associated with a double spike in increased clay content and decreased carbonate content. This suggests a double period of transient greenhouse gas-driven warming and dissolution of carbonates on the seafloor analogous to the PETM in the early Paleocene at ∼ 65.2 Ma. However, the shape of the two negative carbon isotope excursions that make up the Dan-C2 event is different from the PETM carbon isotope profile. In the Dan-C2 event, these excursions are fairly symmetrical and each persisted for about ∼ 40 ky and are separated by a short plateau that brings the combined duration to ∼ 100 ky, suggesting a possible orbital control on the event. Because of the absence of a long recovery phase, we interpret the Dan-C2 event to have been associated with a redistribution of carbon that was already in the biosphere. The Dan-C2 event and other early Paleogene hyperthermals such as the short-lived early Eocene ELMO event may reflect amplification of a regular cycle in the size and productivity of the marine biosphere and the balance between burial of organic and carbonate carbon.