The paleoclimatic and geochronologic utility of coring red beds and evaporites: a case study from the RKB core (Permian, Kansas, USA)

Abstract

Abstract Drill core is critical for robust and high-resolution reconstructions of Earth’s climate record, as well demonstrated from both marine successions and modern long-lived lake systems. Deep-time climate reconstructions increasingly require core-based data, but some facies, notably red beds and evaporites, have garnered less attention for both paleoclimatic and geochronologic analyses. Here, we highlight studies from the Rebecca K. Bounds (RKB) core, a nearly continuous, >1.6 km drill core extending from the Cretaceous to the Mississippian, recovered from the US Midcontinent by Amoco Production Company in 1988, and serendipitously made available for academic research. Recent research conducted on this core illustrates the potential to recover high-resolution data for geochronologic and climatic reconstructions from both the fine-grained red bed strata, which largely represent paleo-loess deposits, and associated evaporite strata. In this case, availability of core was instrumental for (1) accessing a continuous vertical section that establishes unambiguous superposition key to both magnetostratigraphic and paleoclimatic analyses, and (2) providing pristine sample material from friable, soluble, and/or lithofacies and mineralogical species otherwise poorly preserved in surface exposures. The potential for high-resolution paleoclimatic reconstruction from coring of deep-time loess strata in particular remains severely underutilized.