Data report: Cenozoic and Upper Cretaceous bulk carbonate stable carbon and oxygen isotopes from IODP Expedition 369 Sites U1513, U1514, and U1516 in the southeast Indian Ocean

Abstract

International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 369 recovered pelagic sediments spanning the Albian to Pleistocene at Sites U1513, U1514, and U1516. The cores provide an opportunity to determine paleoclimatic and paleoceanographic dynamics from a hitherto poorly sampled mid-high-latitude location across an ~110 My interval, beginning during the Cretaceous supergreenhouse when eastern Gondwana was still largely assembled and ending during the modern icehouse climate after the final breakup of Gondwana. Here we present ~650 bulk carbonate carbon and oxygen stable isotope data points and plot them alongside shipboard data sets to present a first broad documentation of chemostratigraphic data that reveal the stratigraphic position of key climatic transitions and events at Sites U1513, U1514, and U1516. These records show a pronounced long-term δ13C decrease and δ18O increase from the Albian/Cenomanian through the Pleistocene. Superimposed on this long-term trend are transient δ13C and δ18O events correlated with Oceanic Anoxic Event 2, peak Cretaceous warmth during the Turonian, Santonian to Maastrichtian cooling, the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary, the Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum, the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum, the Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum, and the Eocene–Oligocene transition. Recognizing these isotopic events confirms and refines shipboard interpretations and, more importantly, demonstrates the suitability of Sites U1513, U1514, and U1516 for future high-resolution paleoceanographic works aimed at illuminating the links between tectonic and oceanographic dynamics and global versus local environmental changes.