Carbon dioxide emission to Earth’s surface by deep-sea volcanism

Submarine volcanic eruption in El Hierro island (Canary) - (c) NASA's Earth Obs

Satoshi Okumura and Naoto Hirano, from Tohoku University (Japan), have published on the journal Geology an interesting article (Open Access) about CO₂ emitted by submarine volcanism. Here below the abstract of the article.

Large amounts of CO₂ are transferred from Earth’s interior to the surface by volcanism. On a geological time scale, the rate of CO₂ emission has controlled the evolution of Earth’s atmosphere and climate, as well as the dynamic processes that take place in the mantle and core. The total rate of natural CO₂ emission from Earth has been estimated on the basis of CO₂ flux from arc, mid-ocean-ridge, and hotspot volcanism. However, previous estimates have overlooked the CO₂ emitted from a recently discovered type of volcanism—petit-spot volcanism—that occurs on the deep-sea floor. Here, we measure the CO₂ and H₂O contents of glassy basalts produced by petit-spot volcanism and estimate the initial contents to be >5 wt% and 1.0–1.1 wt%, respectively. Based on these values and magma flux of petit-spot volcanism, we show that the rate of CO₂ emission from petit-spot volcanoes (2.7–5.4 × 10¹¹ g CO₂ yr^–1) is a few percent of the CO₂ emissions from arc and mid-ocean-ridge volcanism, and up to ∼14% of that from hotspot volcanism. Thus, the contribution to the carbon cycle on Earth of the large amounts of CO₂ that have been emitted from the deep-sea floor by petit-spot volcanism has not previously been recognized.

Follow the link below to read the full article (Open Access)
Geology, November 2013, v. 41, p. 1167-1170

 

Affiliations: 
Division of Earth and Planetary Materials Science, Department of Earth Science, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8578, Japan
Satoshi Okumura

Center for Northeast Asian Studies, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8576, Japan 
Naoto Hirano

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