New biostratigraphic data from the Cretaceous Bolinxiala Formation in Zanda, southwestern Tibet of China, and their paleogeographic and paleoceanographic implications

Planktonic foraminiferal fossil assemblages identified from the Bolinxiala Formation in Bolin, Zanda, southwestern Tibet of China, determine its age from latest Albian to Maastrichtian. The fossil contents of the Bolinxiala Formation allow its correlation with successions across a platform-to-basin transect of the Late Cretaceous Tethyan Himalaya passive margin. The ocean anoxic event at the Cenomanian–Turonian transition (OAE2) is located at the Whiteinella archaeocretacaea biozone in Zanda, but lithologically it is characterized by grey and bioturbated limestone, implying that during the OAE2 the shallow-water environments of the Tethyan Himalayan carbonate platform remained oxic. Paleogeographic reconstruction indicates that the Upper Cretaceous Oceanic Red Beds (CORBs) in southern Tibet are restricted to the slope and basinal environments but they are entirely missing in the shelf environments. This phenomenon suggests the formation of CORBs by oxidation of Fe(II)-enriched anoxic deep ocean seawater at the chemocline that separated the oxic surface ocean from anoxic deep ocean. For depositional environments above the chemocline, no CORBs would be expected. Because of the chemocline instability across different sedimentary basins, CORBs may be significantly diachronous, consistent with the occurrence of CORBs documented from global sedimentary basins.