A synthesis of the Cretaceous wildfire record related to atmospheric oxygen levels?

The Cretaceous was a significant greenhouse period in Earth's history with higher atmospheric CO_(2) levels and temperatures than today. Although evidence of combustion has been widely described from the Cretaceous deposits, our understanding of the spatiotemporal diversification pattern and process of the Cretaceous wildfires is still limited. In this study, we comprehensively synthesize a total of 271 published Cretaceous wildfire occurrences based on the by-products of burning, including fossil charcoal, pyrogenic inertinite(fossil charcoal in coal), and pyrogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs). Spatially, the dataset shows a distinctive distribution of reported wildfire evidence characterized by high concentration in the middle latitudinal areas of the Northern Hemisphere(30°N-60°N) over the Cretaceous. Temporally, an overall increasing trend of the reported wildfire data from the Early Cretaceous to the Late Cretaceous is coincident with higher atmospheric O_(2) levels. However, the spatial and temporal patterns may result from many types of factors, such as taphonomy, preservation, and researcher biases, instead of a real picture of the Cretaceous wildfire evolution. To better understand the spatiotemporal diversification of the Cretaceous wildfire, more investigations on the record of wildfire occurrences during this period would be necessary in the future.

Intensive peatland wildfires during the Aptian-Albian oceanic anoxic event 1b:Evidence from borehole SK-2 in the Songliao Basin,NE China

The Cretaceous has been considered a“high-fire”world accompanied by widespread by-products of combustion in the rock record.The mid-Cretaceous oceanic anoxic event 1b(OAE1b)is marked by one of the major perturbations in the global carbon cycle characterized by deposition of organic-rich sediments in both marine and terrestrial settings.However,our understanding is still limited on changes in wildfire activity during OAE1b period.Here,we carried out a comprehensive analysis,including organic carbon isotope(δ^(13)C_(org)),total organic carbon(TOC),coal petrology,trace elements,and pyrolytic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(pyroPAHs),of coal seams of the middle Aptian to early Albian Shahezi Formation from borehole SK-2 in Songliao Basin,Northeast China.Two negativeδ^(13)C_(org) excursions in the Shahezi Formation can be corresponded with the 113/Jacob and Kilian sub-events of OAE1b.Moreover,the intensive peatland wildfires have been identified during the sub-event periods of OAE1b based on the co-occurrence of high abundance of charcoal and pyroPAHs at that time.In addition,Sr/Ba,Sr/Cu and Sr/Rb ratios demonstrate that enhanced peatland wildfires were controlled by dryer climate conditions owing to episodic northward migration of arid zones in East Asia related with rising global temperature during the sub-events of OAE1b.The climate-driven extensive wildfire activity in the mid-latitude terrestrial ecosystems can be a contributing factor for OAE1b through the increased flux of nutrients fuelling primary producers in the lake and marine environments and leading to more speculative anoxia to allow the deposition of organic-rich sediments.Our results provide essential understanding of the importance of wildfires in driving mechanism of oceanic anoxic events(OAEs)in Earth's history.