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The geography of the Southeast Asian Islands (SEAI) has changed over the last 15 million years, as a result of tectonic processes contributing to both increased land area and high topography. The presence of the additional land area has been postulated to enhance convective rainfall, facilitating both increased silicate weathering and the development of the modern‐day Walker circulation. Using an Earth System Model in conjunction with a climate‐silicate weathering model, we argue instead for a significant role of SEAItopographyfor both effects. SEAI topography increases orographic rainfall over land, through intercepting moist Asian‐Australian monsoon winds and enhancing land‐sea breezes. Large‐scale atmospheric uplift over the SEAI region increases by ∼14% as a consequence of increased rainfall over the SEAI and enhancement through dynamical ocean‐atmosphere feedback. The atmospheric zonal overturning circulation over the Indo‐Pacific increases modestly arising from dynamical ocean‐atmosphere feedback, more strongly over the tropical Indian Ocean. On the other hand, the effect of the SEAI topography on global silicate weathering is substantial, resulting in a ∼109 ppm reduction in equilibriumpCO₂and decrease in global mean temperature by ∼1.7ºC. The chemical weathering increase comes from both enhanced physical erosion rates and increased rainfall due to the presence of SEAI topography. The lowering ofpCO₂by SEAI topography also enhances the Indo‐Pacific atmospheric zonal overturning circulation. Our results support a significant role for the progressive emergence of SEAI topography in global cooling over the last several million years.

 

Volcanic highlands in the tropics increased global weatherability ~0.9–1.6 Ma before onset of Cryogenian Snowball Earth. 

Abstract Tandem in situ and isotope dilution U-Pb analysis of zircons from pyroclastic volcanic rocks and both glacial and non-glacial sedimentary strata of the Pocatello Formation (Idaho, northwestern USA) provides new age constraints on Cryogenian glaciation in the North American Cordillera. Two dacitic tuffs sampled within glacigenic strata of the lower diamictite interval of the Scout Mountain Member yield high-precision chemical abrasion isotope dilution U-Pb zircon eruption and depositional ages of 696.43 ± 0.21 and 695.17 ± 0.20 Ma. When supplemented by a new high-precision detrital zircon maximum depositional age of ≤670 Ma for shoreface and offshore sandstones unconformably overlying the lower diamictite, these data are consistent with correlation of the lower diamictite to the early Cryogenian (ca. 717–660 Ma) Sturtian glaciation. These 670–675 Ma zircons persist in beds above the upper diamictite and cap dolostone units, up to and including a purported “reworked fallout tuff,” which we instead conclude provides only a maximum depositional age of ≤673 Ma from epiclastic volcanic detritus. Rare detrital zircons as young as 658 Ma provide a maximum depositional age for the upper diamictite and overlying cap dolostone units. This new geochronological framework supports litho- and chemostratigraphic correlations of the lower and upper diamictite intervals of the Scout Mountain Member of the Pocatello Formation with the Sturtian (716–660 Ma) and Marinoan (≤650–635 Ma) low-latitude glaciations, respectively. The Pocatello Formation thus contains a more complete record of Cryogenian glaciations than previously postulated. 

Changes in the geological sulfur cycle are inferred from the sulfur isotopic composition of marine barite. The structure of the³⁴S/³²S record from the Mesozoic to present, which includes ∼50- and 100-Ma stepwise increases, has been interpreted as the result of microbial isotope effects or abrupt changes to tectonics and associated pyrite burial. Untangling the physical processes that govern the marine sulfur cycle and associated isotopic change is critical to understanding how climate, atmospheric oxygenation, and marine ecology have coevolved over geologic time. Here we demonstrate that the sulfur outgassing associated with emplacement of large igneous provinces can produce the apparent stepwise jumps in the isotopic record when coupled to long-term changes in burial efficiency. The record of large igneous provinces map onto the required outgassing events in our model, with the two largest steps in the sulfur isotope record coinciding with the emplacement of large igneous provinces into volatile-rich sedimentary basins. This solution provides a quantitative picture of the last 120 My of change in the ocean’s largest oxidant reservoir.