A chilling perspective on Greenland’s early Cenozoic climate from coupled Hf-Nd isotopes

Abstract:

The prevailing view of northern hemisphere glaciation has been of ice sheets forming on Greenland after 2.7 Ma, with iceberg rafting as early as 15 Ma. This view is incompatible with recent results from global climate/ice sheet models that predict northern hemisphere glaciation only after CO₂ falls below ~280 ppmv (occurring at 25 Ma) and with recent sediment evidence for Arctic iceberg rafting as early as the middle Eocene. However, the amount of northern hemisphere ice represented by these sediments is ambiguous and global ice budget calculations for the early Cenozoic are controversial.

Here we use coupled Hf-Nd isotopes of oxyhydroxides in sediments from the upper Eocene to lower Oligocene section in ODP Site U1411 (Newfoundland Ridge) to determine when the circum-North Atlantic came under the influence of a mechanical weathering regime. Leached oxyhydroxide Hf-Nd isotopes are an indicator of weathering intensity because mechanical weathering by ice sheets mobilizes the zircon-bound Hf reservoir in the crust, which has extreme unradiogenic e_Hf values. Chemical weathering produces a distinct seawater array on Hf-Nd diagrams, while seawater exposed to the products of mechanical weathering plot on divergent arrays closer to the Terrestrial Array.

Hf-Nd isotopes of Site U1411 leachates are grouped in a near vertical trend between the seawater and terrestrial global reference arrays. Within this group there are four distinct arrays that can be delineated by age. Samples that are late Eocene in age fall along an array that is slightly divergent from the seawater array. The aspect of the Hf-Nd isotope data changes permanently after the first step of the EOT, falling along arrays that are systematically offset in the direction of the terrestrial arrays. The steepest array, most proximal to the terrestrial array, is comprised of samples deposited between 33.7 and 32.2 Ma. These results indicate a circum-North Atlantic weathering regime appeared in the earliest Oligocene.