IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v453y2008i7195d10.1038_nature06961.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Snowball Earth termination by destabilization of equatorial permafrost methane clathrate

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Kennedy

    (University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA)

  • David Mrofka

    (University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA)

  • Chris von der Borch

    (School of Chemistry, Physics and Earth Sciences, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100 Adelaide, South Australia, 5001 Australia)

Abstract

Snowball Earth: Exit strategy The recovery from the Marinoan 'snowball' ice age of about 635 million years ago is one of the most severe climate change events known to have occurred on Earth. Hypotheses accounting for the abruptness of deglaciation include ice albedo feedback, deep-ocean out-gassing during post-glacial oceanic overturn or methane hydrate destabilization. Martin Kennedy and colleagues now report the broadest range of oxygen isotope values yet measured in marine sediments in methane seeps in Marinoan deglacial sediments underlying a thin interval of carbonate; these deposits are thought to record widespread oceanic carbonate precipitation during postglacial sea level rise. The range of values is likely the result of mixing between ice-sheet-derived meteoric waters and clathrate-derived fluids during the flushing and destabilization of a clathrate field by glacial meltwater. Their findings suggest that methane released from low-latitude permafrost clathrates acted as a trigger and/or strong positive feedback for deglaciation and warming.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Kennedy & David Mrofka & Chris von der Borch, 2008. "Snowball Earth termination by destabilization of equatorial permafrost methane clathrate," Nature, Nature, vol. 453(7195), pages 642-645, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:453:y:2008:i:7195:d:10.1038_nature06961
    DOI: 10.1038/nature06961
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06961
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature06961?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Trent B. Thomas & David C. Catling, 2024. "Three-stage formation of cap carbonates after Marinoan snowball glaciation consistent with depositional timescales and geochemistry," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-15, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:453:y:2008:i:7195:d:10.1038_nature06961. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.