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Trees and late Palaeozoic CO2 and O2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2018

R. A. Berner
R. A. Berner*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06529-8109, USA
*
*E-mail: [email protected]
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Extract

The rise and evolution of large vascular land plants (mainly trees) during the mid-to-late Palaeozoic resulted in increased consumption of atmospheric CO2 by accelerated silicate rock weathering followed by further consumption due to increased terrestrially-derived organic matter burial in sediments, with the latter accompanied by increased production of O2. Changes in CO2 and O2 have been treated theoretically in terms of carbon- and sulphur-cycle modelling (Berner and Kothavala, 2001; Berner, 2006a,b). The CO2 modelling rests on the palaeobotanical record, field observations of the effect of trees on the rate of modern silicate weathering, and calculation of global organic matter burial based on the carbon isotopic record derived from carbonate fossils.

Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 72 , Issue 1 , February 2008 , pp. 305
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2008

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References

Berner, R.A. and Kothavala, Z. (2001) GEOCARB III: A revised model of atmospheric CO2 over Phanerozoic time. American Journal of Science, 301, 182–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berner, R.A. (2006a) GEOCARBSULF: A combined model for Phanerozoic atmospheric O2 and CO2. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Ada, 70, 5653–5664.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berner, R.A. (2006b) Inclusion of weathering of volcanic rocks in the GEOCARBSULF model. American Journal of Science, 306, 295–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar