Gernon, Thomas M.; et al. (2021): Global chemical weathering dominated by continental arcs since the mid-Palaeozoic
Gernon, Thomas M.; Hincks, Thea K.; Merdith, Andrew S.; Rohling, Eelco J.; Palmer, Martin R.; Foster, Gavin L. et al. (2021): Global chemical weathering dominated by continental arcs since the mid-Palaeozoic. In: Nat. Geosci. 28, S. 611. DOI: 10.1038/s41561-021-00806-0.
„Earth’s plate-tectonic activity regulates the carbon cycle and, hence, climate, via volcanic outgassing and silicate-rock weathering. Mountain building, arc–continent collisions and clustering of continents in the tropics have all been invoked as controlling the weathering flux, with arcs also acting as a major contributor of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. However, these processes have largely been considered in isolation when in reality they are all tightly coupled. To properly account for interactions among these processes, and the inherent multi-million-year time lags at play in the Earth system, we need to characterize their complex interdependencies. Here we analyse these interdependencies over the past 400 million years using a Bayesian network to identify primary relationships, time lags and drivers of the global chemical weathering signal.“