Evidence of high Sr/Ca in a Middle Jurassic murolith coccolith species

Abstract

Paleoceanographical reconstructions are often based on microfossil geochemical analyses. Coccoliths are the most ancient, abundant and continuous record of pelagic photic zone calcite producer organisms. Hence, they could be valuable substrates for geochemically based paleoenvironmental reconstructions but only Sr/Ca is exploited even if it remains poorly understood. For example, some murolith coccoliths species have very high Sr/Ca compared to the common 1-4 mmol/mol recorded in placolith coccoliths. In this study, we analyzed the elemental composition of the Middle Jurassic murolith Crepidolithus crassus by synchrotron-based nanoXRF (X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy) mapping focusing on Sr/Ca and compared the record to two placolith species, namely Watznaueria contracta and Discorhabdus striatus. In C. crassus, Sr/Ca is more than ten times higher than in both placoliths and seems higher in the proximal cycle. By comparison with the placoliths analyzed in the same analytical set-up and from the same sample, we exclude the impact of the diagenesis and seawater Sr/Ca to explain the high Sr/Ca in C. crassus. Based on comparisons to Pontosphaera discopora and Scyphosphaera apsteinii which also have high Sr/Ca, it seems more likely that high Sr/Ca in C. crassus is either due to the vertical elongation of the R-units of the proximal cycle or related to the action of the special polysaccharide controlling the growth of those vertically elongated R-units that may have affinities to Sr2+. In order to apply the Sr/Ca proxy to muroliths, further investigations are needed on cultured coccoliths.