Evolution of alluvial mudrock forced by early land plants

McMahon, William J. and Davies, Neil S. (2018) Evolution of alluvial mudrock forced by early land plants. Science, 359 (6379). pp. 1022-1024. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online) DOI https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan4660

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Abstract

Mudrocks are a primary archive of Earth history from the Archean to recent, and their source-to-sink production and deposition plays a central role in long-term ocean chemistry and climate regulation. Using original and published stratigraphic data from all of Earth’s 704 Archean- (3.5 Ga) to Carboniferous- (0.3 Ga) aged alluvial formations, we prove contentions of an upsurge in the proportion of mud retained on land coeval with vegetation evolution. We constrain the onset of the upsurge to the Ordovician-Silurian and show that alluvium contains onaverage 1.4 orders of magnitude greater mudrock after land plant evolution than it does in the preceding 90% of Earth history. We attribute this shift to the ways in which vegetation revolutionized mud production and sediment flux from continental interiors.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	2018AREP; IA74
Subjects:	07 - Sedimentary Geology
Divisions:	08 - Green Open Access 11 - Sedimentary Geology
Journal or Publication Title:	Science
Volume:	359
Page Range:	pp. 1022-1024
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan4660
Depositing User:	Sarah Humbert
Date Deposited:	02 Mar 2018 18:29
Last Modified:	06 Mar 2018 16:29
URI:	http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/id/eprint/4116

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