It's getting hot here - The Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum (MECO) in a terrestrial sedimentary record

The Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum (MECO) represents an enigmatic global warming event during Cenozoic cooling that has been discovered in ocean drill cores from varying latitudes and oceanic basins. It is marked by a rapid negative shift in oxygen isotope ratios of foraminiferal calcite and thought to reflect the combined effects of freshwater input as well as an increase in sea surface and bottom water temperatures by up to 5 to 6 °C. MECO is therefore a temperature extreme during already warm Eocene climate. This makes the MECO to one of the hottest phases during Earth's climate history, yet it is largely unknown how MECO affected temperatures in the continental interiors as well as their rainfall and vegetation dynamics. Here, we present stable isotope (δ18O, δ13C) and clumped isotope temperature (Δ47) records from a middle Eocene (ca. 42.0 to 40.0 Ma) mammal fossil locality in southwestern Montana, USA. The sampled section (Upper Dell Beds, Sage Creek Basin) comprises about 60 m of stacked paleosols that were correlated to Chron C18r by paleomagnetics and biostratigraphy. δ18O values of pedogenic carbonate range from -12 to -18 per mil (SMOW) and to first-order follows the marine δ18O pattern. Low δ18O values coincide with peak-MECO conditions and show a relatively rapid ca. 5°C increase in soil temperatures reaching peak temperatures of ~27°C at the climax of MECO. Immediately after the MECO event temperatures drop rapidly by about 8°C. To our knowledge this is the first terrestrial MECO paleotemperature record that further provides insight into the precipitation dynamics deep within the North American continent during this early Cenozoic hyperthermal. Paleosol Δ47 temperatures are highly reproducible within and across individual soil sequences and provide a realistic temperature estimate prior, during and after the MECO event. The combined δ18O and Δ47 data therefore provide important insight into the isotopic evolution of precipitation and mean annual temperature during one of the most prominent rapid warming events in Cenozoic history.