New constraints on the Neo-Tethyan carbon cycling and its forcing of early Cenozoic climate

Cenozoic climate trends are classically ascribed to variations of the geological carbon cycle related to Neo-Tethyan geodynamics. It is widely agreed that the collision of India and Arabia with Asia and associated mountain uplift enhanced erosion and global silicate weathering rates, ultimately driving post-50 Ma climate cooling. Cenozoic climate trends, however, involve major events of global warming in the early Paleogene (~60-50 Ma), a period that preceded rapid mountain uplift by about 30 Ma and that was characterized by a climax of arc magmatism profoundly affecting the surface CO2 budget and consequently climate. We present new measurements of mercury and carbon-isotope anomalies documented in the sedimentary archive, together with pre-eruptive CO2 budgets of Neo-Tethyan magmas encompassing the India-Asia and Arabia-Asia collision. We also show new forward modeling of the Neo-Tethyan geodynamics and inverse modeling of the Cenozoic surface CO2 budget which, tied to these new observational constraints, allow us to quantify magmatic CO2 emissions associated with the collision of India and Arabia with Eurasia. We demonstrate through such comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach that CO2 emissions associated with magmatic pulses induced by subduction of Neo-Tethyan lithosphere as well as of Indian and Arabian passive-continental-margin successions exerted a primary control on early Cenozoic climate changes.