Stratigraphy of the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary at the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) in El Kef, Tunisia: New insights from the El Kef Coring Project

Heather L. Jones; Thomas Westerhold; Heather Birch; Pincelli Hull; M. Hédi Negra; Ursula Röhl; Julio Sepúlveda; Johan Vellekoop; Jessica H. Whiteside; Laia Alegret; Michael Henehan; Libby Robinson; Joep van Dijk; Timothy Bralower

doi:10.1130/B36487.1

Stratigraphy of the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary at the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) in El Kef, Tunisia: New insights from the El Kef Coring Project

Heather L. Jones^*
, Thomas Westerhold
, Heather Birch
, Pincelli Hull
, M. Hédi Negra
, Ursula Röhl
, Julio Sepúlveda
, Johan Vellekoop
, Jessica H. Whiteside
, Laia Alegret
, Michael Henehan
, Libby Robinson
, Joep van Dijk
, Timothy Bralower

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

91 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary is marked by one of the largest mass extinctions in Earth’s history, with geological evidence for this event being expressed in hundreds of locations worldwide. An extensively studied section located near El Kef, northwestern Tunisia, is characterized by the classic iridium-rich K/Pg boundary layer, abundant and well-preserved microfossils, and apparently continuous sedimentation throughout the early Danian with no previously described structural complication. These features led to its designation in 1991 as the Global Stratigraphic Section and Point (GSSP) for the base of the Danian (i.e., the K/Pg boundary). However, the outcrop section has become weathered, and the “golden spike” marking the GSSP is difficult to locate. Therefore, the El Kef Coring Project aimed to provide a continuous record of unweathered sediments across the K/Pg transition in cores recovered from five rotary-drilled holes located close to the El Kef GSSP. Here, we present new, high-resolution lithologic, biostratigraphic, and geochemical data from these cores. The recovered stratigraphic successions of each hole (all drilled within ~75 m of one another) are unexpectedly different, and we identified a formerly unknown unconformity within planktic foraminiferal biozone P1b. Our results provide evidence that sedimentation at El Kef was not as continuous or free from structural complication as previously thought. Despite these challenges, we present a new composite section from the five El Kef holes and an age model correlated to the orbitally tuned record at Walvis Ridge, South Atlantic Ocean, which is critical in placing the paleoenvironmental and paleoecological records from El Kef in a global context.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	2451-2477
Number of pages	27
Journal	Bulletin of the Geological Society of America
Volume	135
Issue number	9-10
Early online date	18 Jan 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1130/B36487.1
Publication status	Published - 1 Sept 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank Thomas Frederichs, University of Bremen, Germany, for his attempted paleomagnetic analyses on the El Kef cores and Marwa Baroumi for her assistance in the field during both drilling seasons. Drilling and core shipment was supported by NASA Exobiology NNX12AD83G (to T. Bralower). H. Birch acknowledges support from the European Research Council grant PAst Links in the Evolution of Ocean’s Global ENvIronment and Ecology (PALEOGENiE). J. Sepúlveda acknowledges support from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology International Science and Technology Initiative (MITMISTI Spain) Seed Grant, the University of Colorado Boulder, and National Science Foundation awards 2037750 and 2021648. J. Vellekoop acknowledges support from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) grant 12Z6618N. J.H. Whiteside acknowledges financial support from the Annual Adventures in Research award and Megan Wilding and Bastian Hambach for laboratory assistance. L. Alegret acknowledges support from grant PID2019-105537RBI00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe,” and the Government of Aragon (Reference Group E33_17R). M. Henehan acknowledges financial support from the Yale Peabody Museum and laboratory assistance from Jule Hoysagk. J.v. Dijk acknowledges financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC-2077-390741603 (“The Ocean Floor–Earth’s Uncharted Interface,” research unit RECORDER). Last (but not least), we thank Philippe Claeys and another anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments and suggestions, which helped to greatly improve the quality of this manuscript.

Funding Information:
We thank Thomas Frederichs, University of Bremen, Germany, for his attempted paleomagnetic analyses on the El Kef cores and Marwa Baroumi for her assistance in the field during both drilling seasons. Drilling and core shipment was supported by NASA Exobiology NNX12AD83G (to T. Bralower). H. Birch acknowledges support from the European Research Council grant PAst Links in the Evolution of Ocean’s Global ENvIronment and Ecology (PA-LEOGENiE). J. Sepúlveda acknowledges support from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology International Science and Technology Initiative (MIT-MISTI Spain) Seed Grant, the University of Colorado Boulder, and National Science Foundation awards 2037750 and 2021648. J. Vellekoop acknowledges support from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) grant 12Z6618N. J.H. Whiteside acknowledges financial support from the Annual Adventures in Research award and Megan Wilding and Bastian Hambach for laboratory assistance. L. Alegret acknowledges support from grant PID2019-105537RBI00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe,” and the Government of Aragon (Reference Group E33_17R). M. Henehan acknowledges financial support from the Yale Peabody Museum and laboratory assistance from Jule Hoysagk. J.v. Dijk acknowledges financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC-2077-390741603 (“The Ocean Floor–Earth’s Uncharted Interface,” research unit RECORDER). Last (but not least), we thank Philippe Claeys and another anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments and suggestions, which helped to greatly improve the quality of this manuscript.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Geological Society of America

Access to Document

10.1130/B36487.1

Full-text PDF (accepted manuscript)
This is the accepted author manuscript (AAM) of the article which has been made Open Access under the University of Bristol's Scholarly Works Policy. The final published version (Version of Record) can be found on the publisher's website. The copyright of any third-party content, such as images, remains with the copyright holder.
Accepted author manuscript, 6.43 MBLicence: CC BY

Handle.net

Persistent link

Cite this

Jones, H. L., Westerhold, T., Birch, H., Hull, P., Negra, M. H., Röhl, U., Sepúlveda, J., Vellekoop, J., Whiteside, J. H., Alegret, L., Henehan, M., Robinson, L., van Dijk, J., & Bralower, T. (2023). Stratigraphy of the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary at the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) in El Kef, Tunisia: New insights from the El Kef Coring Project. Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, 135(9-10), 2451-2477. https://doi.org/10.1130/B36487.1

@article{a28508d8a8574d9daf1032469e8a64de,

title = "Stratigraphy of the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary at the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) in El Kef, Tunisia: New insights from the El Kef Coring Project",

abstract = "The Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary is marked by one of the largest mass extinctions in Earth{\textquoteright}s history, with geological evidence for this event being expressed in hundreds of locations worldwide. An extensively studied section located near El Kef, northwestern Tunisia, is characterized by the classic iridium-rich K/Pg boundary layer, abundant and well-preserved microfossils, and apparently continuous sedimentation throughout the early Danian with no previously described structural complication. These features led to its designation in 1991 as the Global Stratigraphic Section and Point (GSSP) for the base of the Danian (i.e., the K/Pg boundary). However, the outcrop section has become weathered, and the “golden spike” marking the GSSP is difficult to locate. Therefore, the El Kef Coring Project aimed to provide a continuous record of unweathered sediments across the K/Pg transition in cores recovered from five rotary-drilled holes located close to the El Kef GSSP. Here, we present new, high-resolution lithologic, biostratigraphic, and geochemical data from these cores. The recovered stratigraphic successions of each hole (all drilled within \textasciitilde{}75 m of one another) are unexpectedly different, and we identified a formerly unknown unconformity within planktic foraminiferal biozone P1b. Our results provide evidence that sedimentation at El Kef was not as continuous or free from structural complication as previously thought. Despite these challenges, we present a new composite section from the five El Kef holes and an age model correlated to the orbitally tuned record at Walvis Ridge, South Atlantic Ocean, which is critical in placing the paleoenvironmental and paleoecological records from El Kef in a global context.",

author = "Jones, \{Heather L.\} and Thomas Westerhold and Heather Birch and Pincelli Hull and Negra, \{M. H{\'e}di\} and Ursula R{\"o}hl and Julio Sep{\'u}lveda and Johan Vellekoop and Whiteside, \{Jessica H.\} and Laia Alegret and Michael Henehan and Libby Robinson and \{van Dijk\}, Joep and Timothy Bralower",

note = "Funding Information: We thank Thomas Frederichs, University of Bremen, Germany, for his attempted paleomagnetic analyses on the El Kef cores and Marwa Baroumi for her assistance in the field during both drilling seasons. Drilling and core shipment was supported by NASA Exobiology NNX12AD83G (to T. Bralower). H. Birch acknowledges support from the European Research Council grant PAst Links in the Evolution of Ocean{\textquoteright}s Global ENvIronment and Ecology (PALEOGENiE). J. Sep{\'u}lveda acknowledges support from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology International Science and Technology Initiative (MITMISTI Spain) Seed Grant, the University of Colorado Boulder, and National Science Foundation awards 2037750 and 2021648. J. Vellekoop acknowledges support from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) grant 12Z6618N. J.H. Whiteside acknowledges financial support from the Annual Adventures in Research award and Megan Wilding and Bastian Hambach for laboratory assistance. L. Alegret acknowledges support from grant PID2019-105537RBI00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe,” and the Government of Aragon (Reference Group E33\_17R). M. Henehan acknowledges financial support from the Yale Peabody Museum and laboratory assistance from Jule Hoysagk. J.v. Dijk acknowledges financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany{\textquoteright}s Excellence Strategy – EXC-2077-390741603 (“The Ocean Floor–Earth{\textquoteright}s Uncharted Interface,” research unit RECORDER). Last (but not least), we thank Philippe Claeys and another anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments and suggestions, which helped to greatly improve the quality of this manuscript. Funding Information: We thank Thomas Frederichs, University of Bremen, Germany, for his attempted paleomagnetic analyses on the El Kef cores and Marwa Baroumi for her assistance in the field during both drilling seasons. Drilling and core shipment was supported by NASA Exobiology NNX12AD83G (to T. Bralower). H. Birch acknowledges support from the European Research Council grant PAst Links in the Evolution of Ocean{\textquoteright}s Global ENvIronment and Ecology (PA-LEOGENiE). J. Sep{\'u}lveda acknowledges support from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology International Science and Technology Initiative (MIT-MISTI Spain) Seed Grant, the University of Colorado Boulder, and National Science Foundation awards 2037750 and 2021648. J. Vellekoop acknowledges support from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) grant 12Z6618N. J.H. Whiteside acknowledges financial support from the Annual Adventures in Research award and Megan Wilding and Bastian Hambach for laboratory assistance. L. Alegret acknowledges support from grant PID2019-105537RBI00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe,” and the Government of Aragon (Reference Group E33\_17R). M. Henehan acknowledges financial support from the Yale Peabody Museum and laboratory assistance from Jule Hoysagk. J.v. Dijk acknowledges financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany{\textquoteright}s Excellence Strategy – EXC-2077-390741603 (“The Ocean Floor–Earth{\textquoteright}s Uncharted Interface,” research unit RECORDER). Last (but not least), we thank Philippe Claeys and another anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments and suggestions, which helped to greatly improve the quality of this manuscript. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 Geological Society of America",

year = "2023",

month = sep,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1130/B36487.1",

language = "English",

volume = "135",

pages = "2451--2477",

journal = "Bulletin of the Geological Society of America",

issn = "0016-7606",

publisher = "Geological Society of America",

number = "9-10",

}

Jones, HL, Westerhold, T, Birch, H, Hull, P, Negra, MH, Röhl, U, Sepúlveda, J, Vellekoop, J, Whiteside, JH, Alegret, L, Henehan, M, Robinson, L, van Dijk, J & Bralower, T 2023, 'Stratigraphy of the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary at the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) in El Kef, Tunisia: New insights from the El Kef Coring Project', Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, vol. 135, no. 9-10, pp. 2451-2477. https://doi.org/10.1130/B36487.1

Stratigraphy of the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary at the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) in El Kef, Tunisia: New insights from the El Kef Coring Project. / Jones, Heather L.; Westerhold, Thomas; Birch, Heather et al.
In: Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, Vol. 135, No. 9-10, 01.09.2023, p. 2451-2477.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

TY - JOUR

T1 - Stratigraphy of the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary at the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) in El Kef, Tunisia

T2 - New insights from the El Kef Coring Project

AU - Jones, Heather L.

AU - Westerhold, Thomas

AU - Birch, Heather

AU - Hull, Pincelli

AU - Negra, M. Hédi

AU - Röhl, Ursula

AU - Sepúlveda, Julio

AU - Vellekoop, Johan

AU - Whiteside, Jessica H.

AU - Alegret, Laia

AU - Henehan, Michael

AU - Robinson, Libby

AU - van Dijk, Joep

AU - Bralower, Timothy

N1 - Funding Information: We thank Thomas Frederichs, University of Bremen, Germany, for his attempted paleomagnetic analyses on the El Kef cores and Marwa Baroumi for her assistance in the field during both drilling seasons. Drilling and core shipment was supported by NASA Exobiology NNX12AD83G (to T. Bralower). H. Birch acknowledges support from the European Research Council grant PAst Links in the Evolution of Ocean’s Global ENvIronment and Ecology (PALEOGENiE). J. Sepúlveda acknowledges support from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology International Science and Technology Initiative (MITMISTI Spain) Seed Grant, the University of Colorado Boulder, and National Science Foundation awards 2037750 and 2021648. J. Vellekoop acknowledges support from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) grant 12Z6618N. J.H. Whiteside acknowledges financial support from the Annual Adventures in Research award and Megan Wilding and Bastian Hambach for laboratory assistance. L. Alegret acknowledges support from grant PID2019-105537RBI00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe,” and the Government of Aragon (Reference Group E33_17R). M. Henehan acknowledges financial support from the Yale Peabody Museum and laboratory assistance from Jule Hoysagk. J.v. Dijk acknowledges financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC-2077-390741603 (“The Ocean Floor–Earth’s Uncharted Interface,” research unit RECORDER). Last (but not least), we thank Philippe Claeys and another anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments and suggestions, which helped to greatly improve the quality of this manuscript. Funding Information: We thank Thomas Frederichs, University of Bremen, Germany, for his attempted paleomagnetic analyses on the El Kef cores and Marwa Baroumi for her assistance in the field during both drilling seasons. Drilling and core shipment was supported by NASA Exobiology NNX12AD83G (to T. Bralower). H. Birch acknowledges support from the European Research Council grant PAst Links in the Evolution of Ocean’s Global ENvIronment and Ecology (PA-LEOGENiE). J. Sepúlveda acknowledges support from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology International Science and Technology Initiative (MIT-MISTI Spain) Seed Grant, the University of Colorado Boulder, and National Science Foundation awards 2037750 and 2021648. J. Vellekoop acknowledges support from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) grant 12Z6618N. J.H. Whiteside acknowledges financial support from the Annual Adventures in Research award and Megan Wilding and Bastian Hambach for laboratory assistance. L. Alegret acknowledges support from grant PID2019-105537RBI00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe,” and the Government of Aragon (Reference Group E33_17R). M. Henehan acknowledges financial support from the Yale Peabody Museum and laboratory assistance from Jule Hoysagk. J.v. Dijk acknowledges financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC-2077-390741603 (“The Ocean Floor–Earth’s Uncharted Interface,” research unit RECORDER). Last (but not least), we thank Philippe Claeys and another anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments and suggestions, which helped to greatly improve the quality of this manuscript. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 Geological Society of America

PY - 2023/9/1

Y1 - 2023/9/1

N2 - The Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary is marked by one of the largest mass extinctions in Earth’s history, with geological evidence for this event being expressed in hundreds of locations worldwide. An extensively studied section located near El Kef, northwestern Tunisia, is characterized by the classic iridium-rich K/Pg boundary layer, abundant and well-preserved microfossils, and apparently continuous sedimentation throughout the early Danian with no previously described structural complication. These features led to its designation in 1991 as the Global Stratigraphic Section and Point (GSSP) for the base of the Danian (i.e., the K/Pg boundary). However, the outcrop section has become weathered, and the “golden spike” marking the GSSP is difficult to locate. Therefore, the El Kef Coring Project aimed to provide a continuous record of unweathered sediments across the K/Pg transition in cores recovered from five rotary-drilled holes located close to the El Kef GSSP. Here, we present new, high-resolution lithologic, biostratigraphic, and geochemical data from these cores. The recovered stratigraphic successions of each hole (all drilled within ~75 m of one another) are unexpectedly different, and we identified a formerly unknown unconformity within planktic foraminiferal biozone P1b. Our results provide evidence that sedimentation at El Kef was not as continuous or free from structural complication as previously thought. Despite these challenges, we present a new composite section from the five El Kef holes and an age model correlated to the orbitally tuned record at Walvis Ridge, South Atlantic Ocean, which is critical in placing the paleoenvironmental and paleoecological records from El Kef in a global context.

AB - The Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary is marked by one of the largest mass extinctions in Earth’s history, with geological evidence for this event being expressed in hundreds of locations worldwide. An extensively studied section located near El Kef, northwestern Tunisia, is characterized by the classic iridium-rich K/Pg boundary layer, abundant and well-preserved microfossils, and apparently continuous sedimentation throughout the early Danian with no previously described structural complication. These features led to its designation in 1991 as the Global Stratigraphic Section and Point (GSSP) for the base of the Danian (i.e., the K/Pg boundary). However, the outcrop section has become weathered, and the “golden spike” marking the GSSP is difficult to locate. Therefore, the El Kef Coring Project aimed to provide a continuous record of unweathered sediments across the K/Pg transition in cores recovered from five rotary-drilled holes located close to the El Kef GSSP. Here, we present new, high-resolution lithologic, biostratigraphic, and geochemical data from these cores. The recovered stratigraphic successions of each hole (all drilled within ~75 m of one another) are unexpectedly different, and we identified a formerly unknown unconformity within planktic foraminiferal biozone P1b. Our results provide evidence that sedimentation at El Kef was not as continuous or free from structural complication as previously thought. Despite these challenges, we present a new composite section from the five El Kef holes and an age model correlated to the orbitally tuned record at Walvis Ridge, South Atlantic Ocean, which is critical in placing the paleoenvironmental and paleoecological records from El Kef in a global context.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85156274132

U2 - 10.1130/B36487.1

DO - 10.1130/B36487.1

M3 - Article (Academic Journal)

AN - SCOPUS:85156274132

SN - 0016-7606

VL - 135

SP - 2451

EP - 2477

JO - Bulletin of the Geological Society of America

JF - Bulletin of the Geological Society of America

IS - 9-10

ER -

Stratigraphy of the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary at the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) in El Kef, Tunisia: New insights from the El Kef Coring Project

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Access to Document

Handle.net

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this