A New View of Deep Earth’s Carbon Emissions

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By Saima May Sidik, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: From time to time, when Earth’s tectonic plates shift, the planet emits a long, slow belch of carbon dioxide. In a new modeling study, Müller et al. show how this gas released from deep Earth may have affected climate over the past billion years. ...Scientists have often estimated the volume of such carbon emissions solely on the basis of the gas released by plate tectonics. But plate tectonics can also capture carbon by incorporating it into new crust formed at mid-ocean ridges. In the new work, researchers drew on two recent studies about the past billion years of plate movement to more precisely model how much carbon dioxide this process has generated. ...Tectonic activity is a major determinant of Earth’s atmospheric composition over geologic time, the researchers conclude. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GC011713, .... 

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