The Early Cretaceous is punctuated by carbon cycle perturbations, associated with organic matter burial episodes and carbonate production crises. These events coincide with short-term cooling (<1Ma), yet the mechanisms are still unclear, because of low resolution in sea surface temperature reconstructions. Recent climatic models suggest that carbonate-platform-collapse events may trigger a short-term ocean cooling episode (Donnadieu et al., accepted). In order to establish relations between climates and carbonate productions, we performed stratigraphic, palaeoecologic and geochemical analyses on Valanginian sediments from the La Charce-Vergol and the Ollioules sections (South-East France) and Aptian sedimentary record of the Galvé subasin (North East Spain). Therefore, high-resolution sea surface temperature curves were reconstructed with regard to the pelagic and neritic carbonate producer evolution. Both Valanginian and Aptian stages are marked by polyphased neritic production drawdown. Moreover, the Late Valanginian, basal and latest Early Aptian carbonate-platform demises predate a short-term cooling occurrence. The chronology of these events may imply that carbonate production decrease may have affected the atmospheric CO2 pool and the climate. Nevertheless, the decreases of water temperature that took place in the Late Valanginian and the latest Early Aptian are also prior to episodes of continental and oceanic organic matter burial, respectively. This process is also known as a CO2 drawdown and cooling generator. The present study allowed establishing climate feedbacks on the pelagic and neritic carbonate producers triggering fluctuations of the carbonate production fluxes. At first, cooler conditions during the Late Valanginien and latest Early Aptian are posterior to floro-faunal changes characterised by heterozoan to photozoan replacements. These suggest a trophic level decrease relative to cool and dryer climatic condition. Subsequently, nannoconid communities seem to record a response to the Late Valanginian climatic change: these producers are characterised by a decline from the latest Early Valanginian onward, interrupted by a recovery from the earliest Late Valanginian up to the mid-Late Valanginian. This recovery coincides with the development of cooling and dryer conditions, triggering low trophic level and thus promoting a subsequent pelagic production recovery.
Relations between climatic fluctuations, carbon cycle perturbations and carbonate production crises : focus on the early cretaceous