Global Warming and Equatorial Atlantic Paleoceanographic Changes During Early Eocene Carbon Cycle Perturbation V

A series of transient global warming events (“hyperthermals”) in the early Eocene is marked by massive environmental and carbon cycle change. Among these events, the impacts of the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (∼56 Ma), Eocene Thermal Maximum 2 (∼54 Ma) and Eocene Thermal Maximum 3 (∼53 Ma) are relatively well documented. However, much less is known about the many subsequent hyperthermals that apparently occurred on orbital eccentricity maxima until at least the end of the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (EECO; ∼53–49 Ma). Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 959 (Equatorial Atlantic Ocean), we report a large negative carbon isotope excursion (CIE) in both organic and carbonate substrates that we correlate to the “V” event sensu Lauretano et al. (2016), https://doi.org/10.1127/nos/2016/0077 (or C22nH1 sensu Sexton et al. (2011), https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09826) at ∼49.7 Ma, following combined bio- and chemostratigraphic constraints. Through TEX86 paleothermometry, we reconstruct a s...