Ice Ages Really Triggered by Tectonic Activity?

For hundreds of millions of years, Earth's climate has remained on a fairly even keel, with some dramatic exceptions: Around 80 million years ago, the planet's temperature plummeted, along with carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. The Earth eventually recovered, only to swing back into the present-day ice age 50 million years ago.

Now geologists at MIT have identified the likely cause of both ice ages, as well as a natural mechanism for carbon sequestration. Just prior to both periods, massive tectonic collisions took place near the Earth's equator -- a tropical zone where rocks undergo heavy weathering due to frequent rain and other environmental conditions. This weathering involves chemical reactions that absorb a large amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The dramatic drawdown of carbon dioxide cooled the atmosphere, the new study suggests, and set the planet up for two ice ages, 80 million and 50 million years ago.

"Everybody agrees that on geological timescales over hundreds of millions of years, tectonics control the climate, but we didn't know how to connect this," says Oliver Jagoutz, associate professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) at MIT. "I think we're the first ones to really link large-scale tectonic events to climate change."

Jagoutz and his colleagues, EAPS Professor Leigh Royden, and Francis McDonald of Harvard University, have published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Did Orogeny Cause the Eocene-Oligocene Paleogene Climate Change?

Orogeny forced terrestrial climate variation during the late Eocene–early Oligocene in Europe

Authors:

Kocsis et al

Abstract

Terrestrial climatic data reflect variable and often conflicting responses to the global cooling event at the Eocene-Oligocene transition (ca. 34 Ma). Stable isotopic compositions of the tooth enamel of large, water-dependent, herbivorous terrestrial mammals are investigated here to better understand the European continental climate during the late Eocene–early Oligocene. High 18OPO4 and δ13C values reflect a semiarid climate and ecosystem in the late Eocene. In the west-southwest region of Europe, these conditions prevailed until at least 33 Ma, after which it became more humid. A similar change was recorded north of the Alpine thrust, but it occurred 2 m.y. earlier. The north and west-southwest regions show a significant offset in δ18OPO4 composition between 35 and 31 Ma, indicating the influence of different air trajectories with different moisture sources (Atlantic versus Tethys). This also marks the presence of an orographic height in central Europe from the latest Eocene. After 31 Ma, a large drop in δ18OPO4 is registered, explained by altitude-induced fractionation on meteoric water isotopic composition. The related paleoaltitude change is estimated to be 1200 m, and the uplift could have taken place along the Alpine-Dinaridic orogenic system.