Short-Term Sea Level Changes of the Upper Cretaceous Carbonates: Calibration between Palynomorphs Composition, Inorganic Geochemistry, and Stable Isotopes

Widespread deposition of pelagic-hemipelagic sediments provide an archive for the Late Cretaceous greenhouse that triggered sea level oscillations. Global distribution of dinoflagellate cysts (dinocysts) exhibited a comparable pattern to the eustatic sea level, and thus, considered reliable indicators for sea level and sequence stratigraphic reconstructions. Highly diverse assemblage of marine palynomorphs along with elemental proxies that relate to carbonates and siliciclastics and bulk carbonate &delta
13C and &delta
18O from the Upper Cretaceous Abu Roash A Member were used to reconstruct short-term sea level oscillations in the Abu Gharadig Basin, southern Tethys. Additionally, we investigated the relationship between various palynological, elemental, and isotope geochemistry parameters and their response to sea level changes and examined the link between these sea level changes and Late Cretaceous climate. This multiproxy approach revealed that a long-term sea-level rise, interrupted by minor short-term fall, was prevalent during the Coniacian-earliest Campanian in the southern Tethys, which allowed to divide the studied succession into four complete and two incomplete 3rd order transgressive-regressive sequences. Carbon and oxygen isotopes of bulk hemipelagic carbonates were calibrated with gonyaulacoids and freshwater algae (FWA)-pteridophyte spores and results showed that positive &delta
13Ccarb trends were consistent, in part, with excess gonyaulacoid dinocysts and reduced FWA-spores, reinforcing a rising sea level and vice versa. A reverse pattern was shown between the &delta
18Ocarb and gonyaulacoid dinocysts, where negative &delta
18Ocarb trends were slightly consistent with enhanced gonyaulacoid content, indicating a rising sea level and vice versa. However, stable isotope trends were not in agreement with palynological calibrations at some intervals. Therefore, the isotope records can be used as reliable indicators for reconstructing changes in long-term sea level rather than short-term oscillations.