Climatic Variations in the Arctic Region in the Cretaceous and Cenozoic

Abstract

As a result of an analysis of published works, a database on paleotemperatures in the Arctic and Subarctic regions based on marine invertebrate skeletons, marine palynomorphs, dinosaur teeth, analysis of the ability of reptiles to lay eggs at low temperatures, terrestrial floral assemblages (CLAMP-analysis), the presence of coal interbeds in continental deposits within the Arctic region, and on membrane lipids of glycerol and dialkylglycerol tetraether in marine sediments and glendonite was assembled. Based on the obtained data, a paleotemperature curve for the Cretaceous–Cenozoic stage of geological history of the Arctic region was constructed. The general trends of this curve are in consistent with the global paleotemperature curve (Scotese, 2015) (with the exception of the cooling period in the Tortonian due to local factors). In total, 16 climatic cycles in the climatic history of the Arctic, including 16 climatic minima (including the glaciation in the Northern Hemisphere) and 15 climatic maxima have been established.