Massive volcanic events in Earth's history that released large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere frequently correlate with periods of severe environmental change and mass extinctions.
Massive volcanic events in Earth's history that released large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere frequently correlate with periods of severe environmental change and mass extinctions. A new method to estimate how much and how rapidly carbon was released by the volcanoes could improve our understanding of the climate response, according to an international team.
The researchers analyzed core samples that capture a 20-million-year record of the early Jurassic period and found mercury levels increased during the peak activity of the Karoo-Ferrar large igneous province and the associated Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event, a period of extensive environmental and climate change some 185 million years ago.
'What this shows us is that there are Earth system responses that exacerbate the effects of the carbon the volcanoes emitted," Fendley said."And based on our results, these feedback processes are actually quite important but not well understood." Estimating the quantity of carbon emissions associated with LIPs has been a challenge in part because scientists have an incomplete record of how much lava erupted. The Karoo-Ferrar LIP, for example, occurred on the former supercontinent Gondwana, and that material is now spread out across the southern hemisphere, spanning modern-day Southern Africa, Antarctica and Tasmania, the scientists said.
The researchers said the core samples, from the Mochras borehole in Wales, U.K., provided a unique opportunity to conduct this research. The long record showed the first clear evidence that there were significantly larger volcanic eruptions during this time period compared to the preceding 15 million years, the scientists said.
Isabel M. Fendley, Joost Frieling, Tamsin A. Mather, Micha Ruhl, Stephen P. Hesselbo, Hugh C. Jenkyns.Earth’s soil contains large stocks of carbon — even more carbon than in the atmosphere. A significant portion of this soil carbon is in organic form , called soil organic ...
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