Shallow carbon storage in ancient buried thermokarst in the South Kara Sea

Source at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32826-z . Geophysical data from the South Kara Sea reveal U-shaped erosional structures buried beneath the 50–250 m deep seafloor of the continental shelf across an area of ~32 000 km 2 . These structures are interpreted as thermokarst, formed in ancient...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific Reports
Main Authors: Portnov, Aleksei D, Mienert, Jürgen, Winsborrow, Monica, Andreassen, Karin, Vadakkepuliyambatta, Sunil, Semenov, Peter, Gataullin, Valery
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Nature Research 2018
Subjects:
VDP::Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400::Geofag: 450
VDP::Mathematics and natural science: 400::Geosciences: 450
Arctic
Kara Sea
Thermokarst
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10037/13867
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32826-z
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Summary:Source at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32826-z . Geophysical data from the South Kara Sea reveal U-shaped erosional structures buried beneath the 50–250 m deep seafloor of the continental shelf across an area of ~32 000 km 2 . These structures are interpreted as thermokarst, formed in ancient yedoma terrains during Quaternary interglacial periods. Based on comparison to modern yedoma terrains, we suggest that these thermokarst features could have stored approximately 0.5 to 8 Gt carbon during past climate warmings. In the deeper parts of the South Kara Sea (>220 m water depth) the paleo thermokarst structures lie within the present day gas hydrate stability zone, with low bottom water temperatures −1.8 o C) keeping the gas hydrate system in equilibrium. These thermokarst structures and their carbon reservoirs remain stable beneath a Quaternary sediment blanket, yet are potentially sensitive to future Arctic climate changes.

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