carbon cycle Archives

Alkaline limited regime (left) leads to slow climate recovery. Reef space collapse (right) stimulates nannoplankton productivity and climate recovery. Credit: Tristan Salles/PNAS/USYD

Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Coral Reefs Have Stabilized Earth’s Carbon Cycle For The Past 250 Million Years

by Keith CowingDecember 2, 2025December 2, 2025

Coral reefs have long been celebrated as biodiversity hotspots – but new research shows they have also played a much deeper role: conducting the rhythm of Earth’s carbon and climate […]

Cores of lava breccia, cemented with white calcium carbonate minerals, recovered from IODP Site U1557 Credit IODP JRSO

Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Press Release, ROVs/Submersibles/Diving, Sample Return

Ancient Rocks Reveal Themselves As Carbon Sponges

by Keith CowingDecember 1, 2025December 1, 2025

Sixty-million-year-old rock samples from deep under the ocean have revealed how huge amounts of carbon dioxide are stored for millennia in piles of lava rubble that accumulate on the seafloor.

Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Fossils & Paleontology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

A Carbon Cycle Flaw Can Plunge Earth Into An Ice Age

by Keith CowingSeptember 26, 2025September 26, 2025

UC Riverside researchers have discovered a piece that was missing in previous descriptions of the way Earth recycles its carbon. As a result, they believe that global warming can overcorrect […]

Biomass Seeing the wood through the trees -- ESA

Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Press Release

Biomass Mission: Weighing A Living Planet’s Forests

by Keith CowingApril 30, 2025September 18, 2025

ESA’s groundbreaking Biomass satellite, designed to provide unprecedented insights into the world’s forests and their crucial role in Earth’s carbon cycle, has been launched. The satellite lifted off aboard a […]

Composite age model constructed from the NKT section and comparison to other estimates for the age and duration of OAE1a. Two youngest dated tuffs SAB-046 and SAB-054 correlated from the nearby SAB section. Shaded distributions in color denote the summed probability distribution of 206Pb/238U dates for each tuff, as likelihood inputs into Bayesian modeling. Posterior distributions are superimposed in black on original likelihoods. The black solid line indicates the median, and the 95% HDI indicated by light gray shading represents the model uncertainty for all interpolated points between tuffs. The right panel illustrates estimates for the age of onset and termination of OAE1a at other sites compared to our results from Hokkaido. Note that, as described in the text, OAE1a is not consistently defined. Hk, Hokkaido; Cs, Cismon; Pb, Piobbico; Pg, Poggio le Guaine; Sb, Svalbard; Sd, Shandong. Only symbols with an error bar represent dates with an uncertainty value; otherwise, no uncertainty is provided. -- Science Advances

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Fossils & Paleontology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Press Release, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Prehistoric Rock In Japan Reveals Clues To A Major Ocean Anoxic Event

by Keith CowingDecember 18, 2024December 19, 2024

By studying prehistoric rocks and fossils emerging from the side of Mount Ashibetsu in Japan, researchers have precisely refined the timing and duration of Ocean Anoxic Event 1a (OAE 1a), […]

A schematic of the saddle node bifurcation in the carbon cycle suggested by our simulations. The blue curve represents the global weathering rate as a function of pCO2. Weathering increases with increasing pCO2 (and surface temperature) in the green zone, and it decreases with increasing pCO2 (and surface temperature) in the red zone. Weathering rates are equal to outgassing (V ) at pCO2=P1 (orange) and at pCO2=P2 (black). The P1 equilibrium is stable because weathering acts as a negative feedback in that regime, while the P2 equilibrium is unstable due to silicate weathering’s positive feedback behavior. The red arrows indicate the directions CO2 and weathering would evolve for a climate intialized from various points relative to the two equilibria. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Carbon Cycle Instability For High-CO2 Exoplanets: Implications For Habitability

by Keith CowingMay 10, 2024May 10, 2024

Implicit in the definition of the classical circumstellar habitable zone (HZ) is the hypothesis that the carbonate-silicate cycle can maintain clement climates on exoplanets with land and surface water across […]

a, Oxygen cycle, where the two boxes separate the deep ocean (bottom) from the well-mixed upper surface ocean and atmosphere (top). Resp., respiration. b, Organic carbon (Corg) cycle. Prod., primary productivity; Remin., remineralization. Fluxes to A denote exchange to the inorganic carbon reservoir, where A is the inorganic carbon reservoir. The primary production of organic carbon is taken from a singular reservoir of inorganic carbon. c, Inorganic carbon cycle, defined by a single box containing the atmosphere and oceans. Oxidw, oxidative weathering; carbw, carbonate weathering; locb, land organic carbon burial; mocb, marine organic carbon burial; mccb, marine carbonate carbon burial; sfw, seafloor weathering; ocdeg, organic carbon degassing; ccdeg, carbonate carbon degassing; rgf, reduced gas flux. d, Phosphorus cycle, where P exists as soluble reactive phosphorus (Preac) and organic bound phosphorus (Porg). Burial sinks of reactive phosphorus include iron bound P (PFe) and authigenic P phases (Pauth). The boxes with background blue background show hydrospheric reservoirs. The grey arrows denote mixing between them, and the black arrows denote biogeochemical fluxes. -- Nature

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Press Release

Earth’s Global Carbon Cycle Could Help Assess Liveability Of Other Planets

by Keith CowingApril 10, 2024

Research has uncovered important new insights into the evolution of oxygen, carbon, and other vital elements over the entire history of Earth – and it could help assess which other […]

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Press Release, ROVs/Submersibles/Diving, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Ocean Transform Faults Study Reveal Previously Unknown Part Of Earth’s Geological Carbon Cycle

by Keith CowingFebruary 13, 2024February 13, 2024

Editor’s note: The Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago was visited by the HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin aboard in 1832 and again by the HMS Challenger – the namesake […]

Microbiology & Virology, Press Release

Deep Microbes' Key Contribution To Earth's Carbon Cycle

by Keith CowingApril 10, 2019

Hydrocarbons play key roles in atmospheric and biogeochemistry, the energy economy, and climate change. Most hydrocarbons form in anaerobic environments through high temperature or microbial decomposition of organic matter. Microorganisms […]