Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) shallow water hydrocarbon seeps from Snow Hill and Seymour Islands, James Ross Basin, Antarctica

Author(s)

Crispin T.S. Little, Daniel Birgel, Adrian J. Boyce, J. Alistair Crame, Jane E. Francis, Steffen Kiel, Jörn Ludwig Peckmann, Duncan Pirrie, Gavyn K. Rollinson, James D. Witts

Abstract

Fossil hydrocarbon seeps are present in latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) volcaniclastic shallow shelf sediments exposed on Snow Hill and Seymour Islands, James Ross Basin, Antarctica. The seeps occur in the Snow Hill Island Formation on Snow Hill Island and are manifest as large-sized, cement-rich carbonate bodies, containing abundant thyasirid bivalves and rarer ammonites and solemyid bivalves. These bodies have typical seep cement phases, with δ

¹³C values between -20.4 and -10.7‰ and contain molecular fossils indicative of terrigenous organic material and the micro-organisms involved in the anaerobic oxidation of methane, including methanotrophic archaea and sulphate-reducing bacteria. On Seymour Island the seeps occur as micrite-cemented burrow systems in the López de Bertodano Formation and are associated with thyasirid, solemyid and lucinid bivalves, and background molluscan taxa. The cemented burrows also have typical seep cement phases, with δ

¹³C values between -58.0 and -24.6‰. There is evidence from other data that hydrocarbon seepage was a common feature in the James Ross Basin throughout the Maastrichtian and into the Eocene. The Snow Hill and Seymour Island examples comprise the third known area of Maastrichtian hydrocarbon seepage. But compared to most other ancient and modern seep communities, the James Ross Basin seep fauna is of very low diversity, being dominated by infaunal bivalves, all of which probably had thiotrophic chemosymbionts, but which were unlikely to have been seep obligates. Absent from the James Ross Basin seep fauna are 'typical' obligate seep taxa from the Cretaceous and the Cenozoic. Reasons for this may have been temporal, palaeolatitudinal, palaeobathymetric, or palaeoecological.

Organisation(s)

Department of Geology

External organisation(s)

University of Leeds, University of Glasgow, British Antarctic Survey, Helford Geoscience LLP, University of Exeter, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Journal

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

Volume

418

Pages

213-228

No. of pages

16

ISSN

0031-0182

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2014.11.020

Publication date

2015

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

105105 Geochemistry, 105121 Sedimentology

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Earth-Surface Processes, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Oceanography, Palaeontology

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/late-cretaceous-maastrichtian-shallow-water-hydrocarbon-seeps-from-snow-hill-and-seymour-islands-james-ross-basin-antarctica(b828e692-6b8c-4697-a1a6-6ea699e0b03d).html