CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF MARINE ECOLOGICAL DISRUPTION ACROSS THE PETM (Invited Presentation)

The marine ecological disruption associated with Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) provides an interesting counter-point to the massive global extinction occurring at the end Cretaceous. The stark differences in biotic response likely partly reflect the differences between a period of relatively persistent greenhouse warming versus the short-lived and near instantaneous climatic perturbation of the older event. Changes in global carbon cycling (and carbon release) such as the nature and pattern of ocean acidification, also fundamentally differed and may have contributed to the differential biotic response. Here I take an Earth system model based approach to quantify and directly contrast the potential marine environmental changes associated with both events. By linking reconstructed environmental changes to key ecological change I will endeavor to place constraints on the respective proximate causes of ecological disruption and place this in the context of projected on-going changes in the Anthropocene.