Paleozoic Atmospheric CO2: Importance of Solar Radiation and Plant Evolution

Changes in solar radiation, as it affects the rate of weathering of silicates on the continents, and other changes involving weathering and the degassing of carbon dioxide (CO(2)) have been included in a long-term carbon-cycle model. These additions to the model show that the major controls on CO(2) concentrations during the Paleozoic era were solar and biological, and not tectonic, in origin. The model predictions agree with independent estimates of a large mid-Paleozoic (400 to 320 million years ago) drop in CO(2) concentrations, which led to large-scale glaciation. This agreement indicates that variations in the atmospheric greenhouse effect were important in global climate change during the distant geologic past.     

Sulfate burial constraints on the Phanerozoic sulfur cycle

The sulfur cycle influences the respiration of sedimentary organic matter, the oxidation state of the atmosphere and oceans, and the composition of seawater. However, the factors governing the major sulfur fluxes between seawater and sedimentary reservoirs remain incompletely understood. Using macrostratigraphic data, we quantified sulfate evaporite burial fluxes through Phanerozoic time. Approximately half of the modern riverine sulfate flux comes from weathering of recently deposited evaporites. Rates of sulfate burial are unsteady and linked to changes in the area of marine environments suitable for evaporite formation and preservation. By contrast, rates of pyrite burial and weathering are higher, less variable, and largely balanced, highlighting a greater role of the sulfur cycle in regulating atmospheric oxygen.     

Seawater strontium isotopic variations from 2.5 million years ago to the present

Measurements of marine carbonate samples indicate that during the past 2.5 million years the (87)Sr/(86)Sr ratio of seawater has increased by 14 x 10(-5). The high average rate of increase of (87)Sr/(86)Sr indicates that continental weathering rates were exceptionally high. Nonuniformity in the rate of increase suggests that weathering rates fluctuated by as much as +/-30 percent of present-day values. Some of the observed shifts in weathering rates are contemporaneous with climatic changes inferred from records of oxygen isotopes and carbonate preservation in deep sea sediments.     

The rise of oxygen over the past 205 million years and the evolution of large placental mammals

On the basis of a carbon isotopic record of both marine carbonates and organic matter from the Triassic-Jurassic boundary to the present, we modeled oxygen concentrations over the past 205 million years. Our analysis indicates that atmospheric oxygen approximately doubled over this period, with relatively rapid increases in the early Jurassic and the Eocene. We suggest that the overall increase in oxygen, mediated by the formation of passive continental margins along the Atlantic Ocean during the opening phase of the current Wilson cycle, was a critical factor in the evolution, radiation, and subsequent increase in average size of placental mammals.     

Chemical weathering in central iceland: an analog of pre-silurian weathering

The rate of chemical weathering in central Iceland is two to three times more rapid in areas with plant cover than in barren areas. This relatively small difference in chemical weathering rates suggests that atmospheric CO(2), pressures no greater than five times the present value were needed to sustain present-day rates of chemical weathering before the development of higher land plants in the Silurian.     

Increase in the export of alkalinity from North America's largest river

Chemical weathering and the subsequent export of carbonate alkalinity (HCO3- + CO3-2) from soils to rivers account for significant amounts of terrestrially sequestered atmospheric CO2. We show here that during the past half-century, the export of this alkalinity has increased dramatically from North America's largest river, the Mississippi. This increased export is in part the result of increased flow resulting from higher rainfall in the Mississippi basin. Subcatchment data from the Mississippi suggest that the increase in the export of alkalinity is also linked to amount and type of land cover. These observations have important implications for the potential management of carbon sequestration in the United States.     

Physical model for the decay and preservation of marine organic carbon

Degradation of marine organic carbon provides a major source of atmospheric carbon dioxide, whereas preservation in sediments results in accumulation of oxygen. These processes involve the slow decay of chemically recalcitrant compounds and physical protection. To assess the importance of physical protection, we constructed a reaction-diffusion model in which organic matter differs only in its accessibility to microbial degradation but not its intrinsic reactivity. The model predicts that organic matter decays logarithmically with time t and that decay rates decrease approximately as 0.2 x t(-1) until burial. Analyses of sediment-core data are consistent with these predictions.     

Thermokarst lakes as a source of atmospheric CH4 during the last deglaciation

Polar ice-core records suggest that an arctic or boreal source was responsible for more than 30% of the large increase in global atmospheric methane (CH4) concentration during deglacial climate warming; however, specific sources of that CH4 are still debated. Here we present an estimate of past CH4 flux during deglaciation from bubbling from thermokarst (thaw) lakes. Based on high rates of CH4 bubbling from contemporary arctic thermokarst lakes, high CH4 production potentials of organic matter from Pleistocene-aged frozen sediments, and estimates of the changing extent of these deposits as thermokarst lakes developed during deglaciation, we find that CH4 bubbling from newly forming thermokarst lakes comprised 33 to 87% of the high-latitude increase in atmospheric methane concentration and, in turn, contributed to the climate warming at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition.     

土壤有机碳储量及影响其分解因素

土壤有机碳库的平衡状况与大气CO2含量密切相关。综述了土壤有机碳储量及影响土壤有机碳分解变化的因素,着重介绍土地利用方式、环境因子及添加有机物料等对土壤有机碳的影响,并提出今后农田土壤有机碳的研究方向。     

Oxygen isotope constraints on the sulfur cycle over the past 10 million years

Oxygen isotopes in marine sulfate (delta18O(SO4)) measured in marine barite show variability over the past 10 million years, including a 5 per mil decrease during the Plio-Pleistocene, with near-constant values during the Miocene that are slightly enriched over the modern ocean. A numerical model suggests that sea level fluctuations during Plio-Pleistocene glacial cycles affected the sulfur cycle by reducing the area of continental shelves and increasing the oxidative weathering of pyrite. The data also require that sulfate concentrations were 10 to 20% lower in the late Miocene than today.     

Carbonate deposition, climate stability, and Neoproterozoic ice ages

The evolutionary success of planktic calcifiers during the Phanerozoic stabilized the climate system by introducing a new mechanism that acts to buffer ocean carbonate-ion concentration: the saturation-dependent preservation of carbonate in sea-floor sediments. Before this, buffering was primarily accomplished by adjustment of shallow-water carbonate deposition to balance oceanic inputs from weathering on land. Neoproterozoic ice ages of near-global extent and multimillion-year duration and the formation of distinctive sedimentary (cap) carbonates can thus be understood in terms of the greater sensitivity of the Precambrian carbon cycle to the loss of shallow-water environments and CO2-climate feedback on ice-sheet growth.     

Late Precambrian oxygenation; inception of the clay mineral factory

An enigmatic stepwise increase in oxygen in the late Precambrian is widely considered a prerequisite for the expansion of animal life. Accumulation of oxygen requires organic matter burial in sediments, which is largely controlled by the sheltering or preservational effects of detrital clay minerals in modern marine continental margin depocenters. Here, we show mineralogical and geochemical evidence for an increase in clay mineral deposition in the Neoproterozoic that immediately predated the first metazoans. Today most clay minerals originate in biologically active soils, so initial expansion of a primitive land biota would greatly enhance production of pedogenic clay minerals (the "clay mineral factory"), leading to increased marine burial of organic carbon via mineral surface preservation.     

Lithium isotope history of Cenozoic seawater: changes in silicate weathering and reverse weathering

Weathering of uplifted continental rocks consumes carbon dioxide and transports cations to the oceans, thereby playing a critical role in controlling both seawater chemistry and climate. However, there are few archives of seawater chemical change that reveal shifts in global tectonic forces connecting Earth ocean-climate processes. We present a 68-million-year record of lithium isotopes in seawater (δ(7)Li(SW)) reconstructed from planktonic foraminifera. From the Paleocene (60 million years ago) to the present, δ(7)Li(SW) rose by 9 per mil (‰), requiring large changes in continental weathering and seafloor reverse weathering that are consistent with increased tectonic uplift, more rapid continental denudation, increasingly incongruent continental weathering (lower chemical weathering intensity), and more rapid CO(2) drawdown. A 5‰ drop in δ(7)Li(SW) across the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary cannot be produced by an impactor or by Deccan trap volcanism, suggesting large-scale continental denudation.     

Carbon isotope constraints on the deglacial CO₂ rise from ice cores

The stable carbon isotope ratio of atmospheric CO(2) (δ(13)C(atm)) is a key parameter in deciphering past carbon cycle changes. Here we present δ(13)C(atm) data for the past 24,000 years derived from three independent records from two Antarctic ice cores. We conclude that a pronounced 0.3 per mil decrease in δ(13)C(atm) during the early deglaciation can be best explained by upwelling of old, carbon-enriched waters in the Southern Ocean. Later in the deglaciation, regrowth of the terrestrial biosphere, changes in sea surface temperature, and ocean circulation governed the δ(13)C(atm) evolution. During the Last Glacial Maximum, δ(13)C(atm) and atmospheric CO(2) concentration were essentially constant, which suggests that the carbon cycle was in dynamic equilibrium and that the net transfer of carbon to the deep ocean had occurred before then.     

Isotopic evidence for massive oxidation of organic matter following the great oxidation event

The stable isotope record of marine carbon indicates that the Proterozoic Eon began and ended with extreme fluctuations in the carbon cycle. In both the Paleoproterozoic [2500 to 1600 million years ago (Ma)] and Neoproterozoic (1000 to 542 Ma), extended intervals of anomalously high carbon isotope ratios (δ(13)C) indicate high rates of organic matter burial and release of oxygen to the atmosphere; in the Neoproterozoic, the high δ(13)C interval was punctuated by abrupt swings to low δ(13)C, indicating massive oxidation of organic matter. We report a Paleoproterozoic negative δ(13)C excursion that is similar in magnitude and apparent duration to the Neoproterozoic anomaly. This Shunga-Francevillian anomaly may reflect intense oxidative weathering of rocks as the result of the initial establishment of an oxygen-rich atmosphere.     

高CO2浓度对稻田CO2排放影响的初步分析

大气CO2浓度升高显著增加作物生物量,从而使进入土壤的有机碳增加,这势必会影响土壤碳的稳定和积累。此项研究主要通过高CO2浓度对作物生物量的直接影响,利用δ13C技术间接地初步分析土壤呼吸CO2排放不同来源贡献的差异。研究表明,在水稻生长季,高CO2浓度降低田间CO2的排放,但不显著;种有水稻,根系对土壤总的呼吸影响主要体现在成熟期之前,且有相互消长的现象。在种有水稻的情况下抽穗期之前分解新有机质为主;高CO2浓度促进土壤原有有机质的分解,在水稻生长的中后期分解更为明显,且高N水平对老有机质的分解有促进作用。鉴于此项研究中的不足之处,将会不断得到完善。     

Atmospheric PCO₂ perturbations associated with the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province

The effects of a large igneous province on the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (PCO?) are mostly unknown. In this study, we estimate PCO? from stable isotopic values of pedogenic carbonates interbedded with volcanics of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) in the Newark Basin, eastern North America. We find pre-CAMP PCO? values of ~2000 parts per million (ppm), increasing to ~4400 ppm immediately after the first volcanic unit, followed by a steady decrease toward pre-eruptive levels over the subsequent 300 thousand years, a pattern that is repeated after the second and third flow units. We interpret each PCO? increase as a direct response to magmatic activity (primary outgassing or contact metamorphism). The systematic decreases in PCO? after each magmatic episode probably reflect consumption of atmospheric CO? by weathering of silicates, stimulated by fresh CAMP volcanics.     

Sea-level fluctuations and deep-sea sedimentation rates

Sediment accumulation rate curves from 95 drilled cores from the Pacific basin and sea-level curves derived from continental margin seismic stratigraphy show that high biogenous sediment accumulation rates correspond to low eustatic sea levels for at least the last 48 million years. This relationship fits a simple model of high sea levels producing lower land/sea ratios and hence slower chemical erosion of the continents, and vice versa.     

The Phanerozoic record of global sea-level change

We review Phanerozoic sea-level changes [543 million years ago (Ma) to the present] on various time scales and present a new sea-level record for the past 100 million years (My). Long-term sea level peaked at 100 +/- 50 meters during the Cretaceous, implying that ocean-crust production rates were much lower than previously inferred. Sea level mirrors oxygen isotope variations, reflecting ice-volume change on the 10(4)- to 10(6)-year scale, but a link between oxygen isotope and sea level on the 10(7)-year scale must be due to temperature changes that we attribute to tectonically controlled carbon dioxide variations. Sea-level change has influenced phytoplankton evolution, ocean chemistry, and the loci of carbonate, organic carbon, and siliciclastic sediment burial. Over the past 100 My, sea-level changes reflect global climate evolution from a time of ephemeral Antarctic ice sheets (100 to 33 Ma), through a time of large ice sheets primarily in Antarctica (33 to 2.5 Ma), to a world with large Antarctic and large, variable Northern Hemisphere ice sheets (2.5 Ma to the present).     

Atmospheric carbon dioxide and carbon reservoir changes

The net release of CO(2) from the biosphere to the atmosphere between 1850 and 1950 is estimated to amount to 1.2 x 10(9) tons of carbon per year. During this interval, changes in land use reduced the total terrestrial biomass by 7 percent. There has been a smaller reduction in biomass over the last few decades. In the middle 19th century the air had a CO(2) content of approximately 268 parts per millon, and the total increase in atmospheric CO(2) content since 1850 has been 18 percent. Major sinks for fossil fuel CO(2) are the thermocline regions of large oceanic gyres. About 34 percent of the excess CO(2) generated so far is stored in surface and thermocline gyre waters, and 13 percent has been advected into the deep sea. This leaves an airborne fraction of 53 percent.