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Titel |
Down the Rabbit Hole: toward appropriate discussion of methane release from gas hydrate systems during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum and other past hyperthermal events |
VerfasserIn |
G. R. Dickens |
Medientyp |
Artikel
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Sprache |
Englisch
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ISSN |
1814-9324
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Digitales Dokument |
URL |
Erschienen |
In: Climate of the Past ; 7, no. 3 ; Nr. 7, no. 3 (2011-08-05), S.831-846 |
Datensatznummer |
250004613
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Publikation (Nr.) |
copernicus.org/cp-7-831-2011.pdf |
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Zusammenfassung |
Enormous amounts of 13C-depleted carbon rapidly entered the exogenic
carbon cycle during the onset of the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum
(PETM), as attested to by a prominent negative carbon isotope (δ13C)
excursion and deep-sea carbonate dissolution. A widely cited
explanation for this carbon input has been thermal dissociation of gas
hydrate on continental slopes, followed by release of CH4 from the
seafloor and its subsequent oxidation to CO2 in the ocean or
atmosphere. Increasingly, papers have argued against this mechanism, but
without fully considering existing ideas and available data. Moreover, other
explanations have been presented as plausible alternatives, even though they
conflict with geological observations, they raise major conceptual problems,
or both. Methane release from gas hydrates remains a congruous explanation
for the δ13C excursion across the PETM, although it requires an
unconventional framework for global carbon and sulfur cycling, and it lacks
proof. These issues are addressed here in the hope that they will prompt
appropriate discussions regarding the extraordinary carbon injection at the
start of the PETM and during other events in Earth's history. |
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