Deep sea reveals linkage between earthquake and carbon cycle
Feb 14, 2019
Scientists analysing a drill core on the research vessel SONNE during an expedition off the coast of Japan in 2016.
Photo: T. Schwestermann
In order to understand the global carbon cycle, deep-sea exploration is essential, an international team led by geologists from Innsbruck concludes. Researchers from MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences are also involved in the study. For the first time, they succeeded in quantifying the amount of organic carbon transported into the deep sea by a single tectonic event, the giant Tohoku-oki earthquake in 2011. The results have now been published in Scientific Reports.
