6. Data Report: Stable Isotope Ratios of Foraminifers from ODP Leg 207, Sites 1257, 1258, and 1260, and a Cleaning Procedure for Foraminifers in Organic-Rich Shales¹

Karen L. Bice² and Richard D. Norris³

ABSTRACT

We report oxygen and carbon stable isotope analyses of foraminifers, primarily planktonic, sampled at low resolution in the Cretaceous and Paleogene sections from Sites 1257, 1258, and 1260. Data from two samples from Site 1259 are also reported. The very low resolution of the data only allows us to detect climate-driven isotopic events on the timescale of more than 500 k.y. A several million-year-long interval of overall increase in planktonic ¹⁸O is seen in the Cenomanian at Site 1260. Before and after this interval, foraminifers from Cenomanian and Turonian black shales have ¹⁸O values in the range –4.2‰ to –5.0‰, suggestive of upper ocean temperatures higher than modern tropical values. The ¹⁸O values of upper ocean dwelling Paleogene planktonics exhibit a long-term increase from the early Eocene to the middle Eocene.

During shipboard and postcruise processing, it proved difficult to extract well-preserved foraminifer tests from black shales by conventional techniques. Here, we report results of a test of procedures for cleaning foraminifers in Cretaceous organic-rich mudstone sediments using various combinations of soaking in bleach, Calgon/hydrogen peroxide, or Cascade, accompanied by drying, repeat soaking, or sonication. A procedure that used 100% bleach, no detergent, and no sonication yielded the largest number of clean, whole individual foraminifers with the shortest preparation time. We found no significant difference in ¹⁸O or ¹³C values among sets of multiple samples of the planktonic foraminifer Whiteinella baltica extracted following each cleaning procedure.

¹Bice, K.L., and Norris, R.D., 2005. Data report: Stable isotope ratios of foraminifers from ODP Leg 207, Sites 1257, 1258, and 1260, and a cleaning procedure for foraminifers in organic-rich shales. In Mosher, D.C., Erbacher, J., and Malone, M.J. (Eds.), Proc. ODP, Sci. Results, 207 [Online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/207_SR/104/104.htm>. [Cited YYYY-MM-DD]

²Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Mail Stop 23, 119 Clark Laboratory, Woods Hole MA 02543, USA. kbice@whoi.edu

³Scripps Institution of Oceanography, MS-0244, 308 Vaughan Hall, La Jolla CA 92093, USA

Initial receipt: 3 January 2005
Acceptance: 24 March 2005
Web publication: 22 July 2005
Ms 207SR-104