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Why Terrestrial Stable Carbon‐isotope Stratigraphy Works: a Review
Author(s) -
FANG Linhao,
LU Yuanzheng,
DENG Shenghui
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
acta geologica sinica ‐ english edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.444
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1755-6724
pISSN - 1000-9515
DOI - 10.1111/1755-6724.12322
Subject(s) - stratigraphy , isotopes of carbon , geology , paleontology , diagenesis , carbon cycle , terrestrial plant , carbon fibers , earth science , terrestrial ecosystem , stable isotope ratio , isotope , total organic carbon , ecology , chemistry , environmental chemistry , tectonics , ecosystem , materials science , biology , composite number , composite material , physics , quantum mechanics
Carbon‐isotope stratigraphy launched since the early technological development of carbon‐isotope measurement in 1950s, however, the emergence and advance of terrestrial carbon‐isotope stratigraphy took quite a long way. At early stage the exploration of carbon‐isotope stratigraphy based on the marine biological shell carbonates was verified by repeatable carbon‐isotope stratigraphic data, laboratory chemical experiments and the later laboratory foraminiferal culture experiments. The breakthrough for testifying the fundamentals of terrestrial carbon‐isotope stratigraphy lies on the synchronous fluctuations between the carbon‐isotope stratigraphic curves derived from marine biological shell carbonates and those derived from terrestrial C3 plants. The character that carbon‐isotope stratigraphic curves can be globally synchronously correlated over the marine and terrestrial/atmospheric reservoir mainly excludes the potential biasing factors, such as diagenetic bias, carbon‐isotope variations in intra/inter individual plant in same species or between species, ecological changes, changes in aridity, changes in source input and representative sampling. Therefore, the fundamentals of terrestrial carbon‐isotope stratigraphy based on C3 plant successfully established. The terrestrial carbon‐isotope stratigraphy can be used for global stratigraphic correlation, reconstructing the evolution of atmospheric CO 2 and can further verify the published global carbon‐cycle models. The terrestrial carbon‐isotope stratigraphy based on the compound specific biomarkers and single‐grained pollen may be a promising perspective in future.