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Foraminiferal δ18O reveals gas hydrate dissociation in Arctic and North Atlantic ocean sediments

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Abstract

Paleoceanographic investigations in the Arctic and north Atlantic are crucial to understanding past and current climate change, in particular considering amounts of pressure-temperature sensitive gas stored in marine sediments of the region. Many paleoceanographic studies are based on foraminiferal oxygen and carbon stable isotope compositions (δ18O, δ13C) from either planktonic specimens, benthic specimens or both. However, in seafloor regions promixal to high upward methane fluxes, such as where seafloor gas emission and shallow gas hydrate-bearing sediment occur, foraminiferal δ18O and δ13C display a wide range of values. Our study focuses on foraminiferal stable isotope signatures in shallow sediment at core sites in the Arctic and North Atlantic affected by significant upward flow of methane. This includes cores with shallow sulfate methane transitions that are adjacent to seeps and containing gas hydrate. We place emphasis on potential effects due to gas hydrate dissociation and diagenesis. Gas hydrate dissociation is known to increase pore-water δ18O, but our results indicate that precipitation of methane-derived authigenic carbonate (MDAC) also affects the foraminiferal δ18O of both planktonic and benthic species. In addition to this post-depositional overprint, we investigate the potential bias of the stable isotope record due to ontogenetic effects. Our data show that the size fraction does not impact the isotopic signal of planktonic and benthic foraminifera.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the captain and the crew of the R/V G.O. Sars and Helmer Hanssen. The authors thank two anonymous reviewers and the Editor Gerald R. Dickens for comments that greatly improved the manuscript.

Funding

This study has been funded by the project Petromaks2 Norcrust–Norwegian margin fluid systems and methane-derived authigenic carbonate crusts (project no. 255150) and the Research Council of Norway through CAGE Center for Excellence in Arctic Gas Hydrate Environment grant 287 no. 223259.

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  1. Department of Geosciences, CAGE–Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate, UiT The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, Tromso, Norway

    Pierre-Antoine Dessandier, Chiara Borrelli, Haoyi Yao, Simone Sauer, Wei-Li Hong & Giuliana Panieri

  2. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

    Chiara Borrelli

  3. IFREMER-Institut Français de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer, Plouzane, France

    Simone Sauer

  4. Geological Survey of Norway, Trondheim, Norway

    Wei-Li Hong

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  1. Pierre-Antoine Dessandier
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Correspondence to Pierre-Antoine Dessandier.

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Dessandier, PA., Borrelli, C., Yao, H. et al. Foraminiferal δ18O reveals gas hydrate dissociation in Arctic and North Atlantic ocean sediments. Geo-Mar Lett 40, 507–523 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00367-019-00635-6

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