The delivery of volcanogenic sulphur into the upper atmosphere by explosive eruptions is known to cause significant temporary climate cooling. Therefore, phreatomagmatic and phreatoplinian eruptions occurring during the final rifting stages of active flood basalt provinces provide a potent mechanism for triggering climate change.
During the early Eocene, the northeast Atlantic margin was subjected to repeated ashfall for 0.5 m.y. This was the result of extensive phreatomagmatic activity along 3000 km of the opening northeast Atlantic rift. These widespread, predominantly basaltic ashes are now preserved in marine sediments of the Balder Formation and its equivalents, and occur over an area extending from the Faroe Islands to Denmark and southern England. These ash-bearing sediments also contain pollen and spore floras derived from low diversity forests that grew in cooler, drier climates than were experienced either before or after these highly explosive eruptions. In addition, coeval plant macrofossil evidence from the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, USA, also shows a comparable pattern of vegetation change. The coincidence of the ashes and cooler climate pollen and spore floras in northwest Europe identifies volcanism as the primary cause of climate cooling. Estimates show that whilst relatively few phreatomagmatic eruptive centres along the 3000 km opening rift system could readily generate 0.5–1 °C cooling, on an annual basis, only persistent or repeated volcanic phases would have been able to achieve the long-term cooling effect observed in the floral record. We propose that the cumulative effect of repeated Balder Formation eruptions initiated a biodiversity crisis in the northeast Atlantic margin forests. Only the decline of this persistent volcanic activity, and the subsequent climatic warming at the start of the Eocene Thermal Maximum allowed the growth of subtropical forests to develop across the region. 相似文献
Precipitation samples were collected by filtrating bulk sampler in Kitakyushu City, Japan, from January 1988 to December 1990. Volume weighted annual mean of pH was 4.93, but the pH distribution indicated that most probable value lay in the range pH 6.0–6.4. Volume weighted annual mean concentrations of major ionic components were as follows; SO
42–
: 84.2, NO
3–
: 28.1, Cl–: 86.3, NH
4+
: 45.5, Ca2+: 63.3, Mg2+: 27.0, K+: 3.4, Na+: 69.0 µ eq l–1. The highest concentrations of these ionic components were observed in winter and the lowest occurred in the rainy season. The ratio of ex-SO
42–
/NO
3–
exhibited the lowest ratio in summer, and the highest ratio in winter. Good correlations were obtained between Cl– and Na+, ex-SO
42+
and ex-Ca2+, NO
3–
and ex-Ca2+, and NH
4+
and ex-SO
42–
, respectively. However, no correlation between Cl– and Na+ with Ca2+ was observed. The relationship of H+ with (ex-SO
42–
+ NO
3–
) - (ex-Ca2+ + NH
4+
) indicated positive correlation. 相似文献
