REDOX GEOCHEMISTRY AND CARBON ISOTOPE CHEMOSTRATIGRAPHY OF THE MIDDLE-LATE DEVONIAN HORN RIVER GROUP

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: The Late Devonian mass extinction is the most contentious of the “Big Five” extinction events: its timing, severity, and causes remain under much debate. A major hindrance to a holistic understanding of the Late Devonian mass extinction event(s) is a lack of sedimentary geochemical data coupled with a lack of reliable age constraints. Moreover, during this interval, oxygen levels may have stabilized to modern levels for the first time in Earth’s history. To better characterize changes in marine redox conditions and their relationship to the Late Devonian extinction, I measured iron speciation and carbon isotopes to characterize the Horn River Group, Northwest Territories, Canada. These data elucidate local redox conditions and more precisely correlate the shales and carbonates understood to be broadly co-eval in time. My findings show that the basin was predominantly euxinic throughout the Middle Devonian, and that it likely records the Frasnes hot shale event. Whereas much work remains to be done to characterize the enigmatic Late Devonian extinctions, the results presented here represent a step forward in understanding how marine redox conditions varied throughout the Devonian.

Type of resource	text
Publication date	January 5, 2023

Author	Endriga, Cecilia
Thesis advisor	Sperling, Erik
Advisor	Payne, Jonathan
Degree granting institution	Stanford University
Department	Geological Sciences

DOI	https://doi.org/10.25740/hd310tx5135
Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/hd310tx5135

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC).

Preferred citation: Endriga, C. (2023). REDOX GEOCHEMISTRY AND CARBON ISOTOPE CHEMOSTRATIGRAPHY OF THE MIDDLE-LATE DEVONIAN HORN RIVER GROUP. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/hd310tx5135. https://doi.org/10.25740/hd310tx5135.

Master's Theses, Doerr School of Sustainability

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