Massive addition of isotopically-depleted carbon to the ocean and atmosphere caused a carbon isotope excursion (CIE) and global greenhouse warming during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) circa 56 million years ago. The body of the CIE is followed by a recovery interval that is key to understanding Earth's capacity for carbon uptake, mechanisms of carbon uptake, and biotic responses following an extreme greenhouse warming event. Expanded terrestrial stratigraphic sections in the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming provide exceptionally high-resolution records of the CIE and can be linked directly to the mammalian fossil record. Here, we provide carbon isotope records of unprecedented resolution measured on in-situ pedogenic carbonate nodules in two parallel 8-km-spaced sections of upper Paleocene and lower Eocene fluvial sediments in the northern Bighorn Basin. We find consistent precession-driven sedimentary cycles in the two sections. Cycle thicknesses show significant lateral, and thus vertical, variation, demonstrating that astronomical age models constructed for fluvial successions require detailed sedimentary facies analysis of parallel sites. Plotting the high-resolution carbon isotope records in time using our astronomical age model for the correlated sections indicates a CIE body duration of 101 ± 9 kyr. The CIE shows an initial recovery step of +2.7 ± 1.0‰. This step occurs across the single, well-developed paleosol marker bed known as Purple-4, which represents a time interval of up to 15 kyr. The rapidity of recovery at the end of the CIE body is remarkable in light of existing hypotheses for carbon removal from the ocean–atmosphere system. Concurrent mammal finds show that the transition from faunal zone Wa-0 to faunal zone Wa-1 occurred in two steps, with a transitional Wa-R fauna preceding the CIE initial recovery step and Wa-1 fauna following the step.

Aggradation and fluvial incision controlled by downstream base-level changes at timescales of 10 to 500 kyr is incorporated in classic sequence stratigraphic models. However, upstream climate control on sediment supply and discharge variability causes fluvial incision and aggradation as well. Orbital forcing often regulates climate change at 10 to 500 kyr timescales while tectonic processes such as flexural (un)loading exert a dominant control at timescales longer than 500 kyr. It remains challenging to attribute fluvial incision and aggradation to upstream or downstream processes or disentangle allogenic from autogenic forcing, because time control is mostly limited in fluvial successions. The Palaeocene outcrops of the fluvial Lebo Shale Member in north-eastern Montana (Williston Basin, USA) constitute an exception. This study uses a distinctive tephra layer and two geomagnetic polarity reversals to create a 15 km long chronostratigraphic framework based on the correlation of twelve sections. Three aggradation–incision sequences are identified with durations of approximately 400 kyr, suggesting a relation with long-eccentricity. This age control further reveals that incision occurred during the approach of – or during – a 405 kyr long-eccentricity minimum. A long-term relaxation of the hydrological cycle related to such an orbital phasing potentially exerts an upstream climate control on river incision. Upstream, an expanding vegetation cover is expected because of an increasingly constant moisture supply to source areas. Entrapping by vegetation led to a significantly reduced sediment supply relative to discharge, especially at times of low evapotranspiration. Hence, high discharges resulted in incision. This study assesses the long-eccentricity regulated climate control on fluvial aggradation and incision in a new aggradation–incision sequence model.