Previous studies have argued that stable carbon isotopic trends can be influenced by changes in relative sea level. As sea level rises, the oceanic basin becomes well mixed, organic carbon burial increases, and the influence of freshwater is diminished. This results in increasing carbon isotopic values in the rocks. When sea level falls, these processes work in reverse and carbon isotopic values progressively decrease. While previous studies have argued for a systematic relationship between sea level and carbon isotopes, those interpretations have not been tested quantitatively. For this project we designed a statistical test for correlating sea level and carbon isotopes. We focused our efforts on rocks exposed in Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park. By pairing carbon isotopic records with the rock record, we performed a series of statistical tests to correlate sea level change and stable carbon isotopic trends.
Sciences
