Isotopically anomalous organic carbon in the aftermath of the Marinoan snowball Earth

Throughout most of the sedimentary record, the marine carbon cycle is interpreted as being in isotopic steady state. This is most commonly inferred via isotopic reconstructions, where two export fluxes (organic carbon and carbonate) are offset by a constant isotopic fractionation of similar to 25 (termed epsilon(org-carb)). Sedimentary deposits immediately overlying the Marinoan snowball Earth diamictites, however, stray from this prediction. In stratigraphic sections from the OI Formation (Mongolia) and Sheepbed Formation (Canada), we observe a temporary excursion where the organic matter has anomalously heavy delta C-13 and is grossly decoupled from the carbonate delta C-13. This signal may reflect the unique biogeochemical conditions that persisted in the aftermath of snowball Earth. For example, physical oceanographic modeling suggests that a strong density gradient caused the ocean to remain stratified for about 50,000 years after termination of the Marinoan snowball event, during which time the surface ocean and continental weathering consumed the large atmospheric CO2 reservoir. Further, we now better understand how delta C-13 records of carbonate can be post-depostionally altered and thus be misleading. In an attempt to explain the observed carbon isotope record, we developed a model that tracks the fluxes and isotopic values of carbon between the surface ocean, deep ocean, and atmosphere. By comparing the model output to the sedimentary data, stratification alone cannot generate the anomalous observed isotopic signal. Reproducing the heavy delta C-13 in organic matter requires the progressively diminishing contribution of an additional anomalous source of organic matter. The exact source of this organic matter is unclear.