Establishment of Upper Cretaceous bio- and carbon isotope stratigraphy in the northwest Pacific Ocean and radiometric ages around the Albian/Cenomanian, Coniacian/Santonian and Santonian/Campanian boundaries

Abstract

The Yezo Group, exposed in Hokkaido, northern Japan, is one of the few strata that recorded Cretaceous paleo-oceanographic changes in the Pacific Ocean. Although the group yields abundant marine macro- and microfossils, sporadic occurrences of age-diagnostic species in several stratigraphic intervals has prevented high-resolution international biostratigraphic correlation. The proposed integrated bio- and carbon isotope stratigraphy of the Yezo Group, which is exposed in northwest Hokkaido, enables high-resolution international stratigraphic correlation spanning from Upper Albian to Lower Campanian. The correlation of the present study identifies the detailed stratigraphic horizons of the Albian/Cenomanian, Cenomanian/Turonian, Turonian/Coniacian, Coniacian/Santonian, and Santonian/Campanian boundaries, as well as the Late Cretaceous paleo-environmental events in the Yezo Group. The Yezo Group is also important in order to complement the chronometric age of the Cretaceous geologic time scale because the group includes numerous felsic tuffs. The U-Pb zircon ages of some of these tuffs, which are interbedded near the Albian/Cenomanian, Coniacian/Santonian and the Santonian/Campanian boundaries in the Yezo Group, are dated at 99.7±0.3 Ma (Quidelleur et al. 2011), 86.87±0.60/0.67 (internal/total error) Ma and 84.7±0.7/1.8 (internal/total error) Ma, respectively. These radiometric ages are consistent with the latest age model of the Cretaceous time scale.