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Earth science

Mountains without erosion

Nature volume 465, pages 169–170 (2010)Cite this article

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Increased erosion associated with the rise of the world's great mountain ranges has been held to be the cause of a prolonged episode of past climate cooling. That connection is now brought into doubt.

On page 211 of this issue, Willenbring and von Blanckenburg1 argue that the rise of the Himalaya and other mountain ranges in geologically recent times did not result in a detectable increase in the transfer of eroded material from the continents to the oceans. The broader significance of this conclusion lies in a climatic connection. The implication is that mountain building, in part through oceanic sequestration of carbon-containing sediments, was not responsible for global climate cooling during the late Cenozoic — an interval of time starting about 40 million years ago.

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Figure 1: Mountain high (but erosion low?).

WORLDSAT INTERNATIONAL/SPL

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Yves Goddéris is at the LMTG-Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, CNRS, Université de Toulouse III, Toulouse F-31400, France. godderis@lmtg.obs-mip.fr ,

    Yves Goddéris

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  1. Yves Goddéris
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Goddéris, Y. Mountains without erosion. Nature 465, 169–170 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/465169a

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