Shallow marine carbonates as recorders of orbitally induced past climate changes – example from the Oxfordian of the Swiss Jura Mountains

Abstract

Abstract. Today and in the geologic past, climate changes greatly affect and have affected Earth surface processes. While the climatic parameters today can be measured with high precision, they have to be interpreted from the sedimentary record for ancient times. This review is based on the detailed analysis of stratigraphic sections of Oxfordian (Late Jurassic) age, with the aim to reconstruct and discuss the climate changes that controlled the sedimentation on the shallow marine carbonate platform that today is represented in the Swiss Jura Mountains. The sediments formed under subtropical conditions in which carbonate-producing organisms proliferated, and ooids and oncoids were common. The sections are composed of hierarchically stacked elementary, small-scale, and medium-scale depositional sequences wherein facies changes imply deepening–shallowing trends. The major sequence boundaries Ox 6, Ox 7, and Ox 8 can be correlated with those of other European basins and place the studied sections in a broader framework. The chronostratigraphic tie points imply that the medium- and small-scale sequences formed in tune with the orbital eccentricity cycles of 405 and 100 kyr, respectively, and the elementary sequences with the precession cycle of 20 kyr. Orbitally controlled insolation changes at the top of the atmosphere translated into climate changes: low insolation generally resulted in low amplitudes of sea level fluctuations at the 20 kyr frequency and in a cool and humid climate at the palaeolatitude of the Jura platform. Terrigenous material was eroded from the hinterland and distributed over the platform. High insolation led to sea level rise, as well as to warm and semiarid to arid conditions in which coral reefs could grow. However, nutrient input favoured growth of microbialites that encrusted the corals. The reconstruction of high-frequency sea level fluctuations based on facies analysis compares well with the curve of insolation changes calculated for the past 550 kyr. It is therefore assumed that the sea level fluctuations were mainly due to thermal expansion and retraction of ocean surface water. Two models are presented that explain the formation of elementary sequences: one for low and one for high insolation. Despite the important lateral facies variations typical of a shallow marine platform, and despite the uncertainties in the reconstruction of sea level changes, this study demonstrates the potential of carbonate ecosystems to record past climate changes at a time resolution of 20 000 years. Relatively short time windows can thus be opened in the deep geologic past, and processes and products there can be compared with those of the Holocene and the Anthropocene. For example, it appears that today's anthropogenically induced sea level rise is more than 10 times faster than the fastest rise reconstructed for the Oxfordian.