TY - JOUR
T1 - Gas Hydrate Dissociation During Sea-Level Highstand Inferred From U/Th Dating of Seep Carbonate From the South China Sea
AU - Chen, Fang
AU - Wang, Xudong
AU - Li, Niu
AU - Cao, Jun
AU - Bayon, Germain
AU - Peckmann, Jörn
AU - Hu, Yu
AU - Gong, Shanggui
AU - Cheng, Hai
AU - Edwards, R. Lawrence
AU - Ning, Youfeng
AU - Jin, Meng
AU - Huang, Huiwen
AU - Wu, Cong
AU - Sun, Yuedong
AU - Chen, Hong
AU - Zhou, Yang
AU - Chen, Duofu
AU - Feng, Dong
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
©2019. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2019/12/16
Y1 - 2019/12/16
N2 - Gas hydrates represent a huge reservoir of methane in marine sediments, prone to dissociation in response to environmental changes. There is consensus that past events of gas hydrate dissociation in the marine environment mainly occurred during periods of low sea level. Here, we report geochemical data for 2-m-thick layers of seep carbonate collected from a hydrate-bearing drill core from ~800-m water depth in the northern South China Sea. The aragonite-rich carbonates reveal positive δ18O values, confirming a genetic link with gas hydrate dissociation. Uranium-thorium dating of seep carbonates indicates that gas hydrates at the study site dissociated between 133,300 and 112,700 years BP, hence coinciding with the Last Interglacial (MIS 5e) sea-level highstand. We put forward the concept that a climate-driven increase in temperature was responsible for a period of pronounced gas hydrate dissociation.
AB - Gas hydrates represent a huge reservoir of methane in marine sediments, prone to dissociation in response to environmental changes. There is consensus that past events of gas hydrate dissociation in the marine environment mainly occurred during periods of low sea level. Here, we report geochemical data for 2-m-thick layers of seep carbonate collected from a hydrate-bearing drill core from ~800-m water depth in the northern South China Sea. The aragonite-rich carbonates reveal positive δ18O values, confirming a genetic link with gas hydrate dissociation. Uranium-thorium dating of seep carbonates indicates that gas hydrates at the study site dissociated between 133,300 and 112,700 years BP, hence coinciding with the Last Interglacial (MIS 5e) sea-level highstand. We put forward the concept that a climate-driven increase in temperature was responsible for a period of pronounced gas hydrate dissociation.
KW - methane seep gas hydrate seep carbonate
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U2 - 10.1029/2019GL085643
DO - 10.1029/2019GL085643
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85076529888
SN - 0094-8276
VL - 46
SP - 13928
EP - 13938
JO - Geophysical Research Letters
JF - Geophysical Research Letters
IS - 23
ER -