Yan Y, Brook EJ, Kurbatov AV, Severinghaus JP, Higgins JA. Ice core evidence for atmospheric oxygen decline since the Mid-Pleistocene transition.
SCIENCE ADVANCES 2021;
7:eabj9341. [PMID:
34910502 PMCID:
PMC8673763 DOI:
10.1126/sciadv.abj9341]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2021] [Accepted: 11/03/2021] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
The history of atmospheric oxygen (PO2) and the processes that act to regulate it remain enigmatic because of difficulties in quantitative reconstructions using indirect proxies. Here, we extend the ice-core record of PO2 using 1.5-million-year-old (Ma) discontinuous ice samples drilled from Allan Hills Blue Ice Area, East Antarctica. No statistically significant difference exists in PO2 between samples at 1.5 Ma and 810 thousand years (ka), suggesting that the Late-Pleistocene imbalance in O2 sources and sinks began around the time of the transition from 40- to 100-ka glacial cycles in the Mid-Pleistocene between ~1.2 Ma and 700 ka. The absence of a coeval secular increase in atmospheric CO2 over the past ~1 Ma requires negative feedback mechanisms such as Pco2-dependent silicate weathering. Fast processes must also act to suppress the immediate Pco2 increase because of the imbalance in O2 sinks over sources beginning in the Mid-Pleistocene.
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