Himalayan chemical weathering and carbon transfer triggered by the April 2015 Nepal Earthquake

2015年4月尼泊尔地震引发的喜马拉雅化学风化和碳转移

• 批准号: NE/N007441/1
• 负责人: Edward Tipper
• 金额: $ 6.63万
• 依托单位: University of Cambridge
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2015 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FN007441%2F1
• 关键词: Himalayan; chemical; weathering; carbon; transfer

The recent Nepalese earthquakes are devastating from a humanitarian perspective, but also have a profound impact on the surface environment of the Earth. One of the major impacts of the ground movement during the Earthquakes is that it destabilises the steep hillsides in the Himalayan valleys of Nepal. This causes major landslides, some of which have been big enough to dam rivers. These landslides cause a massive pulse in fine grained rock material that is delivered into rivers, causing a pulse of sediment in the rivers. This is an active field of research. Increased sediment load can cause flooding, but our interest stems from how that fine grained sediment dissolves. This is because the dissolution of sediment has a major influence on the million year carbon cycle. Although the carbon cycle on such time-scales might seem esoteric, it is critical to understand because it is this long-term carbon cycle that has maintained the climate at the surface of the Earth within a narrow window, ultimately allowing life to develop and be sustained. Carbon and rock dissolution are linked because the main way in which rocks dissolve is via carbonic acid, which is CO2 from the atmosphere dissolved in water. When the carbonic acid dissolves rocks, it becomes neutralised as bicarbonate, a form of carbon that is present in all natural waters (check the label of a mineral water bottle for example). This bicarbonate in waters gets transferred to the oceans by rivers, where ultimately it gets converted to limestone, locking down CO2 permanently. The dominant control on rock dissolution is the supply of sediment via erosion processes, of which land sliding is one of the most important. We expect that the thousands of landslides triggered by the Nepal earthquakes will cause a massive pulse in carbon transfer via rock dissolution over the next 12 months, before the material gets washed out the system by the monsoon rainfalls. We are proposing to collect river water and sediment samples in Nepal, over the next 12 months with a series of international partners to try and better understand the perturbation that an earthquake will have caused to the carbon cycle.

从人道主义的角度来看，最近尼泊尔地震是毁灭性的，但也对地球表面环境产生了深刻的影响。地震期间地面运动的主要影响之一是它使尼泊尔喜马拉雅山谷的陡峭山坡不稳定。这导致了严重的山体滑坡，其中一些已经大到足以阻挡河流。这些山体滑坡造成细粒岩石物质的巨大脉冲，这些物质被输送到河流中，导致河流中的沉积物脉冲。这是一个活跃的研究领域。泥沙负荷的增加可能会导致洪水，但我们的兴趣源于细颗粒沉积物的溶解方式。这是因为沉积物的溶解对百万年的碳循环有重大影响。虽然碳循环在这样的时间尺度上看起来很深奥，但理解它是至关重要的，因为正是这种长期的碳循环使地球表面的气候保持在一个狭窄的窗口内，最终使生命得以发展和维持。碳和岩石溶解是联系在一起的，因为岩石溶解的主要方式是通过碳酸，即大气中的二氧化碳溶解在水中。当碳酸溶解岩石时，它被中和为碳酸氢盐，这是一种存在于所有天然水中的碳形式（例如，检查矿泉水瓶的标签）。水中的碳酸氢盐通过河流转移到海洋中，最终转化为石灰岩，永久地锁住了二氧化碳。对岩石溶蚀的主要控制是通过侵蚀过程提供泥沙，其中陆地滑动是最重要的控制之一。我们预计，尼泊尔地震引发的数千次山体滑坡将在接下来的12个月里，在这些物质被季风降雨冲刷出生态系统之前，通过岩石溶解导致碳转移的巨大脉冲。我们提议在接下来的12个月里，与一系列国际合作伙伴一起，在尼泊尔收集河水和沉积物样本，试图更好地了解地震对碳循环造成的干扰。

项目成果

Chemical weathering outputs from the flood plain of the Ganga

• DOI: 10.1016/j.gca.2018.01.003
• 发表时间: 2018-03-15
• 期刊: GEOCHIMICA ET COSMOCHIMICA ACTA
• 影响因子: 5
• 作者: Bickle, Michael J.;Chapman, Hazel J.;Ahmad, Talat
• 通讯作者: Ahmad, Talat

Global silicate weathering flux over-estimated because of sediment-water cation exchange

由于沉积物-水阳离子交换，全球硅酸盐风化通量被高估

• DOI: 10.17863/cam.63321
• 发表时间: 2021
• 作者: Tipper E

High-precision determination of lithium and magnesium isotopes utilising single column separation and multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry.

• DOI: 10.1002/rcm.8020
• 发表时间: 2018-01-30
• 期刊: Rapid communications in mass spectrometry : RCM
• 作者: Bohlin MS;Misra S;Lloyd N;Elderfield H;Bickle MJ
• 通讯作者: Bickle MJ

Partitioning riverine sulfate sources using oxygen and sulfur isotopes: Implications for carbon budgets of large rivers

• DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2021.116957
• 发表时间: 2021-08
• 期刊: Earth and Planetary Science Letters
• 影响因子: 5.3
• 作者: K. Relph;E. Stevenson;A. Turchyn;G. Antler;M. Bickle;J Jotautas Baronas;S. Darby;D. Parsons