Distortion of carbon isotope excursion in bulk soil organic matter during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum

The Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum was a period of abrupt, transient global warming, fueled by a large release of C-13-depleted carbon and marked globally by a negative carbon isotope excursion. While the carbon isotope excursion is often identified in the carbon isotope ratios of bulk soil organic matter (delta C-13(org)), these records can be biased by factors associated with production, degradation, and sources of sedimentary carbon input. To better understand these factors, we compared delta C-13(org) values from Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum rocks in the southeastern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, with those derived from leaf wax n-alkanes (delta C-13(n-alk)). While both delta C-13(n-alk) and delta C-13(org) records indicate an abrupt, negative shift in delta C-13-values, the carbon isotope excursions observed in bulk organic matter are smaller in magnitude and shorter in duration than those in n-alkanes. To explore these discrepancies, we modeled predicted total plant tissue carbon isotope (delta C-13(TT)) curves from the delta C-13(n-alk) record using enrichment factors determined in modern C-3 plants. Measured delta C-13(org) values are enriched in C-13 relative to predicted delta C-13(TT), with greater enrichment during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum than before or after. The greater C-13 enrichment could reflect increased degradation of autochthonous organic-matter, increased input of alloch-thonous fossil carbon enriched in C-13, or both. By comparing samples from organic-rich and organic-poor depositional environments, we infer that microbial degradation rates doubled during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum, and we calculate that fossil carbon input increased similar to 28%-63%. This approach to untangling the controls on the isotopic composition of bulk soil carbon is an important development that will inform not only future studies of global carbon cycle dynamics during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum hyperthermal event, but also any study that seeks to correlate or estimate duration and magnitude of past events using soil organic carbon.