by Morgan Thomas Jones, Sverre Planke, Christian Tegner, Joost Frieling, Sofie Lindström, Ole Rønø Clausen, Lars Eivind Augland, Tamsin A. Mather, Emma J. Liu

The main emplacement of the North Atlantic Igneous Province (NAIP) occurred during a period of sustained climate change in the Paleogene (63-50 Ma), punctuated by major global warming events such as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). This temporal correlation has led to the hypothesis that NAIP activity played a significant role in causing environmental disturbances, which if substantiated can be used as an analogue for present-day global warming. However, our current understanding of the timing and fluxes of magma emplacement are not sufficiently constrained to be able to rigorously test this hypothesis on the gradual Paleogene warming and/or the transient hyperthermal events such as the PETM. In order to properly evaluate any causal relationship, and to couple a causal link to a mechanistic understanding, a detailed high-resolution record that contains signals of both volcanic and climatic events is required. The aims of the PVOLC drilling project are to complete two onshore boreholes in northwest Denmark that target a unique marine sedimentary archive containing >200 ash layers that covers almost all of the Paleocene and Eocene. Most of this sequence is exceptionally well preserved, but surface outcrops are deformed and discontinuous due to the effects of glacial tectonism. Hence, the need for drilling deeper into an undeformed succession. The acquisition of these core can address two fundamental research goals: 1) Understand what role NAIP plays in driving climate, biotic, and tectonic changes in the Paleogene 2) Distinguish between different magmatic processes, such as explosive eruptions and contact metamorphic degassing, and assess whether there are contrasting effects in terms of environmental disturbances The successful completion of the present project has the potential to greatly improve the relative timing of volcanism, biotic and environmental change, helping to unravel the direct and indirect effects that volcanic forcing has on the environment. The site is ideal because it contains numerous records of volcanic and environmental proxies and has been logistically proven in previous successful drilling campaigns, providing a high probability for success for a relatively modest budget. The target section contains evidence of global warming events on timescales from thousands to millions of years, providing the opportunity to establish the causes of such warming on a variety of timescales. This knowledge will then improve our understanding of other periods in Earth history where volcanic forcing of the climate has been suggested, and potential feedbacks for present day global warming.

• In order to realise these fundamental scientific objectives, a wide range of novel and established techniques will be used *High-precision core scanning and wireline logging provide rapid quantitative analyses, and subsequent interpretation will construct a common depth scale core-log-seismic integration. *Greatly improved geochronology, using multiple tephra layers to conduct U-Pb radiometric age dating *The implementation of core-scanning to use cyclostratigraphy and tephrostratigraphy, tracking the first emergence of tephra and cryptotephra layers from the NAIP *Using metal tracers in sediments as volcanic proxies, including mercury, nickel, and platinum group elements *Make use of the exceptional preservation of some tephra layers to implement modern geochemical and morphological techniques, which can shed light on magma evolution, petrogenesis, and plate tectonic evolution across the Paleogene *Implement state-of-the-art molecular biomarker proxies to reconstruct sea surface temperatures and mean annual air temperatures at the time of deposition *Use a range palynological, biostratigraphical, and paleo-climate proxies to understand the environments and ecosystems of the Paleogene, and how changes in the environment affected these ecosystems *Use weathering proxies, such as lithium and strontium isotopes, to assess the duration and magnitude of changes to the carbon cycle, and the biogeochemical response to these disturbances The combination of these analyses will allow us to reconstruct past environmental conditions, coupled with a detailed history of NAIP magmatism and eruptive history. This will then provide a platform for establishing any potential causal link between large-scale volcanism and climate change events.

Climate Change, NAIP, Paleogene, PETM, Volcanism

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