Carbonate horizons, paleosols, and lake flooding cycles: Beds I and II of Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.

This study documents the petrology and stable isotope geochemistry of carbonates from six horizons from Beds I and II of Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. The studied succession, immediately below and above Tuff IF, consists of interbedded waxy and earthy claystones with discrete carbonate horizons and thin sandstones. The succession was deposited in response to repeated flooding and withdrawal of a saline-alkaline lake. The carbonates and their overlying disconformities are important because they help define the surfaces on which hominin activity took place and allow very high-resolution correlation of geographically separated levels of hominin exploitation. The range of different carbonates includes unambiguous land-surface and pedogenic features including calcified rootmat horizons, rhizocretions, and micritic nodules, together with less determinate sparry calcite nodules. Stellate nodules are interpreted as pseudomorphs after sulfate-roses. The carbonate nodules are synsedimentary features, truncated by fluvial and other erosional surfaces. The isotopic composition of the carbonates is variable with δ(18)O ranging from -7.0‰ to -4.3‰, and δ(13)C from -8.5‰ to -1.6‰. A covariant increase in δ(13)C and δ(18)O repeats in each carbonate horizon and in individual nodules (inner to outer layers): it reflects the evolution of synsedimentary groundwaters. At times of low lake level, the carbonates started to precipitate from meteoric waters with low isotopic values and continued to form as lake levels rose and the waters became increasingly saline. Some of the samples have a last-stage cement of strontium rich dolomite, which supports late-stage flooding by the saline-alkaline lake. Previous studies of carbonate horizons from Olduvai have interpreted carbon isotope values in terms of changes in C(3) and C(4) plants that colonized the land surface. This study demonstrates that in some instances the isotope values from carbonates deposited in these lake marginal settings reflect changes in hydrology rather than vegetation.

Mineralized soft-tissue structure and chemistry in a mummified hadrosaur from the Hell Creek Formation, North Dakota (USA).

An extremely well-preserved dinosaur (Cf. Edmontosaurus sp.) found in the Hell Creek Formation (Upper Cretaceous, North Dakota) retains soft-tissue replacement structures and associated organic compounds. Mineral cements precipitated in the skin apparently follow original cell boundaries, partially preserving epidermis microstructure. Infrared and electron microprobe images of ossified tendon clearly show preserved mineral zonation, with silica and trapped carbon dioxide forming thin linings on Haversian canals within apatite. Furthermore, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) of materials recovered from the skin and terminal ungual phalanx suggests the presence of compounds containing amide groups. Amino acid composition analyses of the mineralized skin envelope clearly differ from the surrounding matrix; however, intact proteins could not be obtained using protein mass spectrometry. The presence of endogenously derived organics from the skin was further demonstrated by pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry (Py-GCMS), indicating survival and presence of macromolecules that were in part aliphatic (see the electronic supplementary material).

Orbital forcing and the spread of C4 grasses in the late Neogene: stable isotope evidence from South African speleothems.

Reconstructing Plio-Pleistocene African paleoenvironments is important for models of early hominin evolution, but is often hampered by low-resolution or discontinuous climatic data. Here, we present high-resolution stable oxygen and carbon isotope time series data from two flowstones (secondary cave deposits) from the South African hominin-bearing Makapansgat Valley. The age of the older of the two flowstones (Collapsed Cone) is constrained by magnetostratigraphy to approximately 4-5 Ma; the younger flowstone (Buffalo Cave) grew between 2.0-1.5 Ma, as determined by magnetostratigraphy and orbital tuning of the isotopic data. The carbon isotope data is used as a proxy for the proportion of C(4) grasses in the local environment and the oxygen isotope data reflects monsoon rainfall intensity. The carbon isotope evidence indicates that in the late Miocene/early Pliocene, the local environment was dominated by C(3) vegetation, whereas, in the Plio-Pleistocene, it was composed of a mixture of C(3) and C(4) vegetation. This suggests that C(4) grasses became a significant part of the Makapansgat Valley ecosystem at approximately 4-5 Ma, towards the end of the late Neogene global expansion of C(4) grasses. After this initial expansion, South Africa experienced further fluctuations in the proportion of C(3) and C(4) vegetation during the Plio-Pleistocene, in response to regional and global climatic changes. Most notably, the Buffalo Cave flowstone provides evidence for C(4) grass expansion at ca. 1.7 Ma that we suggest was a response to African aridity caused by the onset of the Walker Circulation in the Pacific Ocean at this time.