The terrestrial Lower Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation, Utah, is a critical archive of paleoclimate, tectonics, and vertebrate ecology and evolution. Early Cretaceous carbon cycle perturbations associated with ocean anoxia have been interpreted from this succession, as expressed in stable carbon isotopes. However, refining the timing of the observed stable isotope excursions remains a key challenge in understanding how marine anoxia affects the Earth system, and is ultimately recorded in the terrestrial realm. The geochronology and geochemistry of a terrestrial carbonate near the base of this succession, which potentially records the Ap7 global carbon isotope excursion, is studied here. Petrographic and geochemical analyses are used to test plausible mechanisms for U incorporation into the calcite lattice in this sample. Using these methods, the hypothesis that the incorporation of U was at or close to the timing of carbonate precipitation is evaluated. U–Pb geochronology of calcite indicates a plausible Early Cretaceous age. However, comparison of the new U–Pb ages of calcite with detrital zircon maximum depositional ages immediately beneath the studied sample indicates a disparity in the apparent sedimentation rates if both types of geochronologic information are interpreted as reflecting the timing of sediment deposition. The totality of data supports an early, and high-temperature, diagenetic timing of U incorporation, with potential for minor leaching of U in subsequent fluid–rock interaction. The most likely mechanism for U transport and immobilization in these samples is hydrothermal fluid–rock interaction. Therefore, the radiometric ages, and corresponding stable isotope composition of U-bearing carbonate domains in this sample, indicate early subsurface fluid–rock interactions and not a record of atmosphere–soil geochemical reactions.

Measurements of oxygen and hydrogen stable isotope ratios (δ¹⁸O and δD) in meteoric waters provide insight to overlapping effects of evaporation, precipitation, and mixing on basin scale hydrology. This study of waters collected between 2016 and 2021 in the Turkana Basin, northern Kenya, uses δ¹⁸O and δD to understand water balance in Lake Turkana, a large, low‐latitude, alkaline desert lake. The Omo River, a major river system in the Ethiopian Highlands, is historically understood to provide approximately 90% of the water input to Lake Turkana. Discharge of the Omo is prohibitively difficult to measure, but stable isotope ratios in the lake may provide a meaningful method for monitoring the lake's response to changes in input. Precipitation in the Turkana Basin is low (<200 mm/year) with negligible rainfall on the lake's surface, and all water loss from the lake is evaporative. We compare new measurements with previous data from the region and records of lake height and precipitation from the same time period. We show that a Bayesian approach to modeling evaporation using atmospheric conditions and river δ¹⁸O and δD yields results consistent with published water balance models. Continued sampling of lake and meteoric waters in the Turkana Basin will be a useful way to monitor the lake's response to regional and global climate change.

Because of its global abundance and reactivity with hydroxyl radicals (OH•), tropospheric carbon monoxide indirectly impacts the lifetimes of other OH•‐reactive gases, in particular methane and reactive hydrocarbons. The origin and chemistry of atmospheric CO have been studied using stable isotopes. Both ¹³CO and C¹⁸O undergo isotopic fractionation during its main chemical loss reaction, CO + OH•. The kinetic isotope effect (KIE) for ¹³CO is mass dependent, with a value of ∼5‰; ¹²CO reacts faster than ¹³CO with OH. Whereas C¹⁸O + OH• exhibits an inversely mass dependent KIE ∼−10‰. We hypothesize these KIEs result in a relative depletion of ¹³C¹⁸O, a CO clumped isotope. To test this, we collected CO from air samples on Long Island, NY, and discovered a −3 to −8‰ difference in the clumped isotope ratio, Δ₃₁, relative to a random distribution of ¹³C and ¹⁸O in CO. A clear negative trend between [CO] and Δ₃₁ is driven by two factors: (a) the atmospheric addition of CO from either a primary or secondary source with a Δ₃₁ of ∼0‰ and (b) the continuing reaction of CO with OH•, leaving the remaining CO pool relatively depleted in ¹³C¹⁸O. This is analogous to the mechanism that determines CO Δ¹⁷O values. This study is among the first to show clumped isotope fractionation resulting from atmospheric chemistry and not thermal equilibration, which may inform the identification of clumped isotope KIEs in other atmospheric trace gases. These first Δ₃₁ observations motivate future experimental and observational studies targeted at characterizing the clumped isotopes of CO sources, background CO, and experimentally fractionated CO.