Gou, Long-Fei;
Sun, He;
Gu, Hai-Ou;
Pogge von Strandmann, Philip AE;
Li, Wenshuai;
Wilson, David J;
Xiao, Jun;
... Jin, Zhangdong; + view all
(2025)
K isotopes trace temporal silicate weathering intensity.
Nature Communications
10.1038/s41467-025-67085-w.
(In press).
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Abstract
Silicate weathering alters the biogeochemical compositions of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere, and thereby regulates both nutrient cycling and habitable temperatures on Earth, but tracing silicate weathering effectively remains a challenge. Potassium (K) isotopes have been proposed as a tracer of silicate weathering intensity spatially, but there is a significant gap in how and why K isotopes trace silicate weathering temporally. Here we investigate seasonal variations in dissolved K isotopes in the middle Yellow River, which drains a large area of homogeneous loess that represents the average geochemical composition of the upper continental crust, and experiences significant climatic seasonality driven by the East Asian monsoon. We find that K isotopes show strong seasonality as a function of aluminosilicate neoformation following silicate dissolution, and thus could serve as a tracer of silicate weathering intensity. We derive an empirical relationship of δ41Krw = −0.07 × ln(W/D) − 0.38, where W(silicate chemical weathering)/D(denudation) refers to silicate weathering intensity.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | K isotopes trace temporal silicate weathering intensity |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41467-025-67085-w |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-67085-w |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s), 2025. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Carbon cycle, Element cycles, Geochemistry. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Earth Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10219003 |
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