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Rapid carbon sequestration at the termination of the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum

Nature Geoscience volume 3, pages 866–869 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

The Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), an approximately 170,000-year-long period of global warming about 56 million years ago, has been attributed to the release of thousands of petagrams of reduced carbon into the ocean, atmosphere and biosphere1,2. However, the fate of this excess carbon at the end of the event is poorly constrained: drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been attributed to an increase in the weathering of silicates or to increased rates of organic carbon burial1,3,4,5. Here we develop constraints on the rate of carbon drawdown based on rates of carbon isotope change in well-dated marine and terrestrial sediments spanning the event. We find that the rate of recovery is an order of magnitude more rapid than that expected for carbon drawdown by silicate weathering alone. Unless existing estimates of carbon stocks and cycling during this time are widely inaccurate, our results imply that more than 2,000 Pg of carbon were sequestered as organic carbon over 30,000–40,000 years at the end of the PETM. We suggest that the accelerated sequestration of organic carbon could reflect the regrowth of carbon stocks in the biosphere or shallow lithosphere that were released at the onset of the event.

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Figure 1: Carbon isotope records spanning the PETM in marine and terrestrial sediments.
Figure 2: Model for δ13C recovery at the end of the PETM.
Figure 3: Carbon-cycle properties consistent with a half-life for the PETM CIE recovery of 16 kyr.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by US National Science Foundation grants EAR-0628302 and OCE-0902882 to G.J.B. and EAR-0628719 to J.C.Z. We thank L. Kump, R. Zeebe and J. Dickens for comments that improved earlier versions of the manuscript. This is Purdue Climate Change Research Center paper 1040.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department and Purdue Climate Change Research Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906, USA

    Gabriel J. Bowen

  2. Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA

    James C. Zachos

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  1. Gabriel J. Bowen
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G.J.B. conceived and carried out the study. J.C.Z. advised on age models for marine records. Both authors wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Gabriel J. Bowen.

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Bowen, G., Zachos, J. Rapid carbon sequestration at the termination of the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. Nature Geosci 3, 866–869 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1014

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