Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) shallow water hydrocarbon seeps from Snow Hill and Seymour Islands, James Ross Basin, Antarctica

Little, Crispin T.S.; Birgel, Daniel; Boyce, Adrian J.; Crame, J. Alistair ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5027-9965; Francis, Jane; Kiel, Steffen; Peckmann, Jörn; Pirrie, Duncan; Rollinson, Gavyn K.; Witts, James D.. 2015 Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) shallow water hydrocarbon seeps from Snow Hill and Seymour Islands, James Ross Basin, Antarctica. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 418. 213-228. 10.1016/j.palaeo.2014.11.020

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2014.11.020

Abstract/Summary

Fossil hydrocarbon seeps are present in latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) volcaniclastic shallow shelf sediments exposed on Snow Hill and Seymour Islands, James Ross Basin, Antarctica. The seeps occur in the Snow Hill Island Formation on Snow Hill Island and are manifest as large-sized, cement-rich carbonate bodies, containing abundant thyasirid bivalves and rarer ammonites and solemyid bivalves. These bodies have typical seep cement phases, with δ13C values between − 20.4 and − 10.7‰ and contain molecular fossils indicative of terrigenous organic material and the micro-organisms involved in the anaerobic oxidation of methane, including methanotrophic archaea and sulphate-reducing bacteria. On Seymour Island the seeps occur as micrite-cemented burrow systems in the López de Bertodano Formation and are associated with thyasirid, solemyid and lucinid bivalves, and background molluscan taxa. The cemented burrows also have typical seep cement phases, with δ13C values between − 58.0 and − 24.6‰. There is evidence from other data that hydrocarbon seepage was a common feature in the James Ross Basin throughout the Maastrichtian and into the Eocene. The Snow Hill and Seymour Island examples comprise the third known area of Maastrichtian hydrocarbon seepage. But compared to most other ancient and modern seep communities, the James Ross Basin seep fauna is of very low diversity, being dominated by infaunal bivalves, all of which probably had thiotrophic chemosymbionts, but which were unlikely to have been seep obligates. Absent from the James Ross Basin seep fauna are ‘typical’ obligate seep taxa from the Cretaceous and the Cenozoic. Reasons for this may have been temporal, palaeolatitudinal, palaeobathymetric, or palaeoecological.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1016/j.palaeo.2014.11.020
Programmes:	BAS Programmes > Polar Science for Planet Earth (2009 - ) > Environmental Change and Evolution
ISSN:	00310182
Additional Keywords:	hydrocarbon seeps, palaeoecology, chemosynthetic ecosystems, bivalves, Cretaceous
Date made live:	08 Dec 2014 09:37 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/509006

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1016/j.palaeo.2014.11.020

Programmes:

BAS Programmes > Polar Science for Planet Earth (2009 - ) > Environmental Change and Evolution

ISSN:

00310182

Additional Keywords:

hydrocarbon seeps, palaeoecology, chemosynthetic ecosystems, bivalves, Cretaceous

Date made live:

08 Dec 2014 09:37 +0 (UTC)