How earthquakes help capture carbon dioxide

LONG before people started dumping large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, the planet was producing—and managing—such emissions rather well all on its own. Volcanic eruptions release massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the air, putting even the dirtiest smokestacks in the shade. According to new research, another terrifying natural phenomenon plays a role in storing carbon.

Geologists have long known that CO2 from big volcanic eruptions has in the past triggered a greenhouse effect which raised temperatures, drove evaporation, increased rainfall and then dropped rain that is rich in carbonic acid onto surface rocks, resulting in much of the carbon from the droplets getting locked away as layers of carbonate in the ground. They suspected that earthquakes made things worse, by causing landslides that destroy large amounts of trees and vegetation. The carbon stored in dead plant tissues would then escape into the atmosphere through oxidation.

Not so, reckons a report in Geology by Zhangdong Jin of the Institute of Earth Environment in China and Robert Hilton of Durham University in England. The pair suspected something else…Continue reading
Source: Economist