Paper No. 227-8
Presentation Time: 10:15 AM
TOPOGRAPHY, PRECIPITATION AND EROSION IN THE MARITIME CONTINENT INCREASED SILICATE WEATHERING EFFICIENCY IN THE LAST 15 MYR
The Maritime Continent contributes to ~12 % of modern global silicate weathering flux, owing to the extreme rainfall and the intense exhumation and erosion in this region. Precipitation in the Maritime Continent are due largely to the interaction of topography with seasonal northward and southward large-scale atmospheric circulation. The topography of the Maritime Continent is related to arc-continent collisions that started in the Neogene, which are also responsible of the high exhumation and erosion rates of the region. Using the CESM climate model, coupled to the weathering module DynSoil of the geochemical cycle model GEOCLIM, we quantify the relations between topography growth, precipitation, erosion and silicate weathering, and compare the relative contribution of climate dynamics and exhumation to the increase of silicate weathering efficiency. Recent constraints on the topography and exhumation/erosion history of a transect in New Guinea allow us to go further than these sensitivity experiments and provide a first-order estimate of the temporal evolution of silicate weathering efficiency due to progressively increased precipitation and erosion rates during the last 15 Myrs.