A Transformative Carbon Sink in the Ocean?

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https://eos.org/opinions/a-transformative-carbon-sink-in-the-ocean


Excerpt: Effectively lowering atmospheric carbon levels will require a range of actions, from individuals making hard decisions about lifestyle changes to international cooperation to pursue solutions from a diverse menu of options. Among the options under consideration are methods for deliberate carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere.... ...humanity may need to implement CDR on a vast scale to compensate for the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels over the past century. Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE), in which the addition of ions like Mg2+ and Ca2+ (sourced from materials such as olivine or lime) to the ocean drives more dissolution of atmospheric CO2 to form bicarbonate (HCO3–), holds considerable promise, because the ocean’s capacity for storing bicarbonate is ample on the relevant time frame [Renforth and Henderson, 2017]. ...Earth’s mantle...is a vast reservoir of ultramafic (low-silica) rock. In concept, a small fraction of this rock—minimally about 600 cubic kilometers if completely converted to carbonate—could neutralize the entire slug of Industrial Age fossil carbon in the atmosphere. Oceanic transform faults and their fracture zone extensions present tectonic settings where such reactive mantle rocks, which are typically buried under kilometers of crust, are exposed at Earth’s surface. ...Oceanic transform fault settings are known to host low-temperature hydrothermal systems that sequester dissolved CO2 by precipitating mineral carbonate [Kelley et al., 2007]. ...Geoengineering solutions can have unintended consequences, so a cautious approach is in order. 

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