India-Asia collision as a driver of atmospheric CO2 in the Cenozoic

Guo, Zhengfu; Wilson, Marjorie; Dingwell, Donald B. und Liu, Jiaqi (2021): India-Asia collision as a driver of atmospheric CO2 in the Cenozoic. In: Nature Communications, Bd. 12, Nr. 1, 3891

Abstract

Deep Earth degassing is a critical forcing factor for atmospheric CO2 variations and palaeoclimate changes in Earth's history. For the Cenozoic, the key driving mechanism of atmospheric CO2 variations remains controversial. Here we analyse three stages of collision-related magmatism in Tibet, which correspond temporally with the three major stages of atmospheric CO2 variations in the Cenozoic and explore the possibility of a causal link between these phenomena. To this end we present geochemical data for the three stages of magmatic rocks in Tibet, which we use to inform a model calculating the continental collision-induced CO2 emission flux associated with the evolving Neo-Tethyan to continental subduction over the Cenozoic. The correlation between our modelled CO2 emission rates and the global atmospheric CO2 curve is consistent with the hypothesis that the India-Asia collision was the primary driver of changes in atmospheric CO2 over the Cenozoic. Earth degassing is a critical carbon source, but its contribution to Cenozoic atmospheric CO2 variations is not well known. Here, the authors analyse CO2 fluxes on the Tibetan Plateau and suggest that the India-Asia collision was the primary driver of changes in atmospheric CO2 over the past 65Ma.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Geowissenschaften
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 550 Geowissenschaften, Geologie
• ISSN: 2041-1723
• Sprache: Englisch