Orbitally‐driven Palaeogene to Neogene deposition in the western South Atlantic (Espírito Santo Basin) and its correlation with global sea level

Abstract

Over the last 66 million years, Earth has undergone dramatic climate changes, shifting from a warm greenhouse to the more recent cold icehouse with polar ice caps in both hemispheres. Geological records show that the transition between these equilibrium states caused significant long‐term eustatic sea‐level and atmospheric CO2 decline paced by external orbital motions. Such eustatic variability influenced the stacking pattern of sedimentary successions, generating cyclic sequence boundaries that may be globally correlated. However, the impact of such oscillation along the Brazilian margin is largely unknown. This study used the natural gamma‐ray log from a well (ES‐2) at the offshore Espírito Santos Basin (western South Atlantic) measured between late‐Palaeocene and late‐Miocene. Null hypothesis tests ‐ evolutionary Average Spectral Misfit and Correlation Coefficient of no orbital modulation ‐ were executed to confirm the influence of astronomical parameters. The evolutionary Time Optimization algorithm was used to extract the sedimentation rate and depositional time. The anchored timescale shows a chronological interval placed between 58.97 and 7.72 ± 0.1 Ma (mid‐Thanetian – late Tortonian), mostly influenced by long‐eccentricity and short‐eccentricity (405 kyr and ca 100 kyr, respectively) and obliquity (ca 40 kyr) and their respective amplitude modulations (ca 2.4 Myr and 1.2 Myr). Applying the Integrated Prediction Error Filter Analysis and a high‐resolution age model, this study identified main depositional trends through time and correlated them to global sea‐level change. The correlation indicates that several intervals of global sea‐level reduction agree with a regressive trend at the ES‐2 site, but this relation is affected during enhanced regional tectonic activity intervals, as related to the emplacement of the Abrolhos Archipelago. The strategy adopted here is a way to join cyclostratigraphy and sequence stratigraphy, and promotes high‐resolution local‐to‐global correlation by identifying key stratigraphic surfaces. This will be relevant for palaeoclimatic studies and the geoscientific industry.