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Oceanic Anoxia Event 2 (~94 Ma) In The U.S. Western Interior Sea: High Resolution Foraminiferal Record Of The Development Of Anoxia In A Shallow Epicontinental Sea, Amanda L. Parker

Masters Theses

The Upper Cretaceous Tropic Shale of southern Utah captures critical oceanographic changes that occurred during Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 (OAE 2) and the transgression of the Greenhorn Sea. We investigated the response of planktic and benthic foraminifera in a shallow (<100 >m) marine environment stressed by the onset of OAE 2 during the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary (CTB; 93.9 Ma) to determine the oceanographic mechanisms controlling the observed turnovers in the foraminiferal record. This study is based on high-resolution quantitative foraminifera counts and isotope paleoecology (d¹⁸O and d¹³C) from a 40-m outcrop. The OAE 2 interval is identified …