The Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event: where do we stand?

Abstract The study of past climate changes is pivotal for understanding the complex biogeochemical interactions through time between the geosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere, which are critical for predicting future global changes. The Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event, also known as the Jenkyns Event, was a hyperthermal episode that occurred during the early Toarcian (c. 183 Ma; Early Jurassic) and resulted in numerous collateral effects including global warming, enhanced weathering, sea-level change, carbonate crisis, marine anoxia–dysoxia and biotic crisis. The IGCP-655 project of the IUGS–UNESCO has constituted an international network of researchers with different disciplinary skills who have collaborated and shared conceptual advances on uncovering drivers of the environmental changes and ecosystem responses. This volume, Carbon Cycle and Ecosystem Response to the Jenkyns Event in the Early Toarcian (Jurassic), presents 16 works that investigate the early Toarcian environmental changes related to the global warming, sea-level rise, carbon cycle perturbation and second-order mass extinction through biostratigraphy, micropalaeontology, palaeontology, ichnology, palaeoecology, sedimentology, integrated stratigraphy, inorganic, organic and isotopic geochemistry, and cyclostratigraphy.