The ) is the longest period of the Paleozoic, which was characterized by a peak of greenhouse climate in Earth history, as well as extreme high sea level (Haq and Schutter, 2008;Munnecke et al., 2010), with warm and humid conditions in early-middle period and seawater temperature up to 45°C (Trotter et al., 2008). The carbon cycle fluctuated greatly (Melchin et al., 2013;Cramer et al., 2015) and atmospheric CO 2 concentrations reached ~4200 ppm. During the

Isotopic analysis of conodonts and their host limestones sampled between two regionally extensive, altered volcanic ash layers in eastern Laurentia shows that a 454 Ma epeiric sea maintained large lateral differences in Nd and C isotope compositions. This is consistent with inferred temperature-salinity-defined epicontinental water masses and restricted circulation between epicontinental and oceanic environments. Because the majority of old marine fossils and sedimentary rocks are known from epeiric seas, some isotope excursions in ancient marine strata may originate from expansion and contraction of geochemically distinct epicontinental water masses, rather than global-scale changes in the state of the earth-ocean system. Data Repository item 9861 contains additional material related to this article.

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Shallow-water carbonate sediments constitute the bulk of sedimentary carbonates in the geologic record and are widely used archives of Earth's chemical and climatic history. One of the main limitations in interpreting the geochemistry of ancient carbonate sediments is the potential for post-depositional diagenetic alteration. In this study, we use paired measurements of calcium (44 Ca/ 40 Ca) and magnesium (26 Mg/ 24 Mg) isotope ratios in sedimentary carbonates and associated pore-fluids as a tool to understand the mineralogical and diagenetic history of Neogene shallow-water carbonate sediments from the Bahamas and southwest Australia. We find that the Ca and Mg isotopic composition of bulk carbonate sediments at these sites exhibits systematic stratigraphic variability that is related to both mineralogy and early marine diagenesis. The observed variability in bulk sediment Ca isotopes is best explained by changes in the extent of fluid-dominated early marine diagenesis in both platform and slope sediments. Our results indicate that this process, together with variations in carbonate mineralogy (aragonite, calcite, and dolomite), likely plays a fundamental and underappreciated role in determining the regional and global stratigraphic expressions of geochemical tracers (d 13 C, d 18 O, major, minor, and trace elements) in shallow water carbonate sediments in the geologic record.

We report δ44/40Ca(SRM 915a) values for eight fused MPI‐DING glasses and the respective original powders, six USGS igneous rock reference materials, the U‐Th disequilibria reference material TML, IAEA‐CO1 (Carrara marble) and several igneous rocks (komatiites and carbonatites). Sample selection was guided by three considerations: (1) to address the need for information values on reference materials that are widely available in support of interlaboratory comparison studies; (2) support the development of in situ laser ablation and ion microprobe techniques, which require isotopically homogenous reference samples for ablation; and (3) provide Ca isotope values on a wider range of igneous and metamorphic rock types than is currently available in the scientific literature. Calcium isotope ratios were measured by thermal ionisation mass spectrometry in two laboratories (IFM‐GEOMAR and Saskatchewan Isotope Laboratory) using 43Ca/48Ca‐ and 42Ca/43Ca‐double spike techniques and reported relative to the calcium carbonate reference material NIST SRM 915a. The measurement uncertainty in both laboratories was better than 0.2‰ at the 95% confidence level. The impact of different preparation methods on the δ44/40Ca(SRM 915a) values was found to be negligible. Except for ML3‐B, the original powders and the respective MPI‐DING glasses showed identical δ44/40Ca(SRM 915a) values; therefore, possible variations in the Ca isotope compositions resulting from the fusion process are excluded. Individual analyses of different glass fragments indicated that the glasses are well homogenised on the mm scale with respect to Ca. The range of δ44/40Ca(SRM 915a) values in the igneous rocks studied was larger than previously observed, mostly owing to the inclusion of ultramafic rocks from ophiolite sections. In particular, the dunite DTS‐1 (1.49 ± 0.06‰) and the peridotite PCC‐1 (1.14 ± 0.07‰) are enriched in 44Ca relative to volcanic rocks (0.8 ± 0.1‰). The Carrara marble (1.32 ± 0.06‰) was also found to be enriched in 44Ca relative to the values of assumed precursor carbonates (< 0.8‰). These findings suggest that the isotopes of Ca are susceptible to fractionation at high temperatures by, as yet, unidentified igneous and metamorphic processes.