Alteration of ocean crust provides a strong temperature dependent feedback on the geological carbon cycle and is a primary driver of the Sr-isotopic composition of seawater

Abstract

On geological timescales there is a temperature dependent feedback that means that increased degassing of CO2 into the atmosphere leads to increased CO2 drawdown into rocks stabilizing Earth's climate. It is widely considered that this thermostat largely comes from continental chemical weathering. An alternative, or additional, feedback comes from dissolution of seafloor basalt in low-temperature (tens of °C), off-axis, hydrothermal systems. Carbonate minerals precipitated in these systems provide strong evidence that increased bottom water temperature (traced by their O-isotopic compositions) leads to increased basalt dissolution (traced by their Sr-isotopic compositions). Inversion of a simple probabilistic model of fluid–rock interaction allows us to determine the apparent activation energy of rock dissolution in these systems. The high value we find () indicates a strong temperature dependence of rock dissolution. Because deep-ocean temperature is sensitive to global climate, and the fluid temperature in the upper oceanic crust is strongly influenced by bottom water temperature, increased global temperature must lead to increased basalt dissolution. In turn, through the generation of alkalinity by rock dissolution, this leads to a negative feedback on planetary warming; i.e. off-axis, hydrothermal systems play an important role in the planetary thermostat. Changes in the extent of rock dissolution, due to changes in bottom water temperature, also lead to changes in the flux of unradiogenic Sr into the ocean. The decreased flux of unradiogenic Sr into the ocean due to the cooling of ocean bottom water over the last 35 Myr is sufficient to explain most of the increase in seawater 87Sr/86Sr over this time.