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Transient mobilization of subcrustal carbon coincident with Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum

Nature Geoscience volume 15, pages 573–579 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Plume magmatism and continental breakup led to the opening of the northeast Atlantic Ocean during the globally warm early Cenozoic. This warmth culminated in a transient (170 thousand year, kyr) hyperthermal event associated with a large, if poorly constrained, emission of carbon called the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) 56 million years ago (Ma). Methane from hydrothermal vents in the coeval North Atlantic Igneous Province (NAIP) has been proposed as the trigger, though isotopic constraints from deep sea sediments have instead implicated direct volcanic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Here we calculate that background levels of volcanic outgassing from mid-ocean ridges and large igneous provinces yield only one-fifth of the carbon required to trigger the hyperthermal. However, geochemical analyses of volcanic sequences spanning the rift-to-drift phase of the NAIP indicate a sudden ~220 kyr-long intensification of magmatic activity coincident with the PETM. This was likely driven by thinning and enhanced decompression melting of the sub-continental lithospheric mantle, which critically contained a high proportion of carbon-rich metasomatic carbonates. Melting models and coupled tectonic–geochemical simulations indicate that >104 gigatons of subcrustal carbon was mobilized into the ocean and atmosphere sufficiently rapidly to explain the scale and pace of the PETM.

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Fig. 1: Early Cenozoic tectonic and magmatic evolution of the northeast Atlantic.
Fig. 2: Palaeocene–Eocene volcanostratigraphy and geochemistry of the proto-northeast Atlantic ridge.
Fig. 3: Simulations of volcanic carbon release during the PETM.
Fig. 4: Deep carbon mobilization and release in the North Atlantic during the PETM.

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Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are provided in the online version of this article (Supplementary Data File S1) and in Extended Data Tables 1–6. The map in Fig. 1b was plotted with open source plate tectonic application software GPlates (https://www.gplates.org/; licensed for distribution under a GNU General Public License). Any new geochemical data generated in this study are also available to download via the figshare repository at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19732948. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

More details on the computational methods and tools used for this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) grant (NE/R004978/1) to T.M.G., which also supported T.K.H. T.M.G. and T.K.H. received funding from The Alan Turing Institute under the EPSRC grant EP/N510129/1. J.L. was supported by NERC grant NE/K00543X/1 awarded to M.R.P. and T.M.G. T.M.G. acknowledges the Distinguished Geologists’ Memorial Fund of the Geological Society of London to sample the Rockall tuffs at the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Bremen Core Repository (BCR). R.N.M. was supported by a National Natural Science Foundation of China grant (41888101) and a Key Research Programme of the Institute of Geology & Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), grant (number IGGCAS-201905). A.S.M. was supported by the Deep Carbon Observatory, Richard Lounsbery Foundation and MCSA Fellowship NEOEARTH, project 893615. We are grateful to the staff of the BCR, especially W. Hale, for their assistance, and to M. Cooper, A. Michalik and A. Milton (University of Southampton) for laboratory assistance. We thank G. Hincks for illustrating the Late Palaeocene northeast Atlantic ridge (Fig. 4).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Ocean & Earth Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Thomas M. Gernon, Ryan Barr, Thea K. Hincks, Derek Keir, Jack Longman & Martin R. Palmer

  2. School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    J. Godfrey Fitton

  3. Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Florence, Italy

    Derek Keir

  4. Institute for Chemistry & Biology of the Marine Environment, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

    Jack Longman

  5. Laboratoire de Géologie, Université of Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France

    Andrew S. Merdith

  6. School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Andrew S. Merdith

  7. State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology & Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Ross N. Mitchell

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Contributions

T.M.G. conceived the idea, led the study, interpreted the data and prepared the manuscript and figures. T.K.H. performed the modelling, with input from T.M.G. R.N.M. assisted with tectonic and geodynamic interpretation, and J.G.F., J.L., R.B. and M.R.P. provided support with geochemical analysis and interpretation. J.G.F. carried out the melt modelling with input from T.M.G. A.S.M. calculated the seafloor production rates and provided support with GPlates and ‘pyGPlates’. D.K. contributed to tectonic interpretations. T.M.G. wrote the manuscript with input from all co-authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomas M. Gernon.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Primary Handling Editors: James Super and Rebecca Neely, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team. Nature Geoscience thanks James Muirhead, Sverre Planke and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Schematic stratigraphic log of Palaeocene–Eocene volcanic and sedimentary lithofacies at DSDP Leg 81 Site 555, and the composition of tuff layers.

The corresponding plots show the major-element composition, and Mg#, of tuff layers, shown as horizontal red lines (and labelled by lithology; see also Extended Data Fig. 3a) on the log. The Mg# of a number of basalt lavas and tuffs from Harrison and Merriman99 are also shown as filled grey symbols.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Compositional characteristics of lavas from the Faroes and Greenland.

Simplified log of basalt lava successions from the Faroes and east Greenland (modified after ref. 26, with Mg# and (Eu/Yb)n (chondrite-normalised56); Mg# data are from ref. 26 and (Eu/Yb)n are from refs. 27,32.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 3 Geochemical characteristics of tuffs layers from DSDP Leg 81 Site 555.

Total alkali-silica (TAS) diagram (after ref. 101) showing the composition of volcanic tuffs of PETM age (approximately 700-600 mbsl; see Extended Data Fig. 2), in addition to Danish ashes of the ‘negative series’23. b, Nb versus Zr of tuffs from Site 555, shown alongside tuffs of the Danish Ash Series23 and Balder Formation in the North Sea102, and lavas from the Rockall/Hatton Bank103. The fields shown for OIB, N-MORB and Iceland rift-zones are from ref. 104. c, Incompatible element patterns of Rockall tuffs from the upper section (700-600 mbsl) normalized to primitive mantle105. The corresponding depths in the core are provided in Extended Data Table 3. For comparison, some Danish ashes (negative series) are also shown23.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Input distributions for sampled variables used in carbon outgassing simulations.

a, Fraction of CO2 present in mid-ocean ridge basalts and those of large igneous provinces (LIPs); b, Fraction of CO2 lost from the ocean crust via degassing at mid-ocean ridges; c, Fraction of CO2 lost from LIP basalt eruptions; d, Thickness of the sub-continental lithospheric mantle (SCLM); e, Width of the SCLM melting zone beneath the mid-ocean ridge system; f, Fraction of CO2 present in the SCLM. Note that the red line denotes the mean. See the Methods for further information on these variables.

Extended Data Table 1 Compositional characteristics of volcanic tuffs from the Rockall Plateau in the northeast Atlantic.

Analysis of major and trace element compositions of volcanic tuffs from DSDP Site 555 (for stratigraphic context, see Fig. 2a and Extended Data Fig. 1). Note that Mg# = 100 x molecular MgO/(MgO + FeO), where FeO is assumed to be 0.9FeOT.

Extended Data Table 2 Neodymium isotope characteristics of volcanic rocks from the Rockall Plateau.

143Nd/144Nd and associated εNd measurements of tuffs, lavas and hyaloclastites from DSDP Leg 81 Site 555. The sample ID number includes the site number (555), core box reference (e.g., 65-1), and the depth from the top of a given core (in cm). The 143Nd/144Nd ratios and associated εNd values are corrected to an age of 55 Ma. Also provided are published 143Nd/144Nd and associated εNd measurements from Site 555 lavas73. Errors on discrete measurements are 2 and 1 standard error (SE).

Extended Data Table 3 Trace element composition of volcanic rocks from the Rockall Plateau.

Trace element compositions by ICP-MS of selected PETM-age tuffs from Site 555. The associated recoveries of trace elements from standard reference materials are provided in Supplementary Table 2.

Extended Data Table 4 Distribution coefficients used in melt modelling.

Distribution coefficients (D) used in the construction of Fig. 2e. Note that n = number of individual values of D.

Extended Data Table 5 Inputs used in degassing models.

Description of inputs used in modelling of CO2 fluxes from mid-ocean ridges, large igneous provinces (LIPs), and melting of the sub-continental lithospheric mantle (SCLM). See the Methods for further details and model description.

Extended Data Table 6 Variables used in carbon flux simulations.

Description of variables used in the carbon flux simulations (Fig. 3) given best estimates of the minimum, maximum and mean for each variable, based on data and observations (see Methods). We fixed the standard deviation, SD = 0.2 x range. See the Methods for further details and model description.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Tables 1–2.

Supplementary Data File S1

Major and trace element compositions of volcanic tuffs from DSDP Site 555 in the northeast Atlantic (for stratigraphic context, see Fig. 2a and Extended Data Fig. 1). Note that Mg# = 100 × molecular MgO/(MgO + FeO), where FeO is assumed to be 0.9FeOT.

Supplementary Data File S2

143Nd/144Nd and associated ϵNd measurements of tuffs, lavas and hyaloclastites from DSDP Leg 81 Site 555. The sample ID number includes the site number (555), core box reference (for example, 65-1) and the depth from the top of a given core (in cm). The 143Nd/144Nd ratios and associated ϵNd values are corrected to an age of 55 Ma. Also provided are published 143Nd/144Nd and associated ϵNd measurements from Site 555 lavas73. Errors on discrete measurements are 2 and 1 standard error.

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Gernon, T.M., Barr, R., Fitton, J.G. et al. Transient mobilization of subcrustal carbon coincident with Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. Nat. Geosci. 15, 573–579 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00967-6

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