[27] Organic carbon burial rates skyrocketed in these oxygen-poor waters, which may have acted as a negative feedback that helped restore global temperatures to their pre-MECO state after the warming ended.
[4] Yet another hypothesis implicates increased continental arc volcanism in what are now Azerbaijan and Iran for this surge in atmospheric greenhouse gas levels.
[32] Some analyses have also found that the rise in atmospheric pCO2 was more limited than previous studies have suggested, instead proposing that the observed warming was caused by a much greater sensitivity of the Earth's climate to changes in pCO2 relative to today.
[33] Diminished negative feedback of silicate weathering may have occurred around the time of the MECO's onset and allowed volcanically released carbon dioxide to persist in the atmosphere for longer.
[34] The MECO warmth may have been sustained through a further inhibition of silicate weathering following the onset of warming via enhanced clay formation.
[37] Planktonic foraminifera underwent a major biotic turnover; acarinids were greatly reduced in diversity and morozovellids went extinct.
[38] The range of the planktonic foraminifer Orbulinoides beckmanni, a species well adapted to warm waters, expanded to higher latitudes during the MECO.
[5][39] Benthic foraminifera exhibited a decline due to enhanced respiration of pelagic heterotrophs, limiting the amount of organic matter making its way to the ocean depths.
[47] MECO warmth catalysed the faunal turnover leading to the rise of crown-group carnivorans to prominence in the continent's terrestrial ecosystems.
[48][49] In Balkanatolia, lower montane forests and warm, humid lowland rainforests were the dominant biomes in what is now the middle Black Sea region of northern Anatolia.
[52] Nourished by abundant carbon dioxide and a favourable temperature, this highly diverse flora reverted to pre-MECO levels of biodiversity after the hothouse concluded.