An unprecedented abundance of ocean life played a crucial role in creating Earth's mountains, a landmark study led by scientists at the University of Aberdeen has revealed.
While the formation of mountains is usually associated with the collision of tectonic plates, which causes huge rock plates to be pushed towards the surface, the study has shown that this was caused by the abundance of nutrients in the oceans 2,000 million years ago. years, causing an explosion of planktonic life.
When the plankton died, they fell to the bottom of the ocean and eventually formed graphite, which played a crucial role in lubricating the breakup of rocks into plates, allowing them to stack on top of each other to form mountains.
Research has revealed that the amount of planktonic life was unusually high in this period, thus creating the necessary conditions that were crucial for the rise of mountains over millions of years.
Professor John Parnell, from the University of Aberdeen's School of Geosciences, led the research which was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and has been published in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment .
According to Parnell mountains are an essential part of the landscape, but large mountain ranges only formed halfway through Earth's history, about two billion years ago . The geological record for this period includes evidence of an abundance of organic matter in the oceans, which was preserved as graphite in shale when it died.
Although it has long been known that tectonic processes were lubricated, our research shows that it was the high abundance of carbon in the ocean that played a crucial role in the thickening of the crust that built the Earth's mountain ranges. /em> We can see the evidence in the northwest of Scotland, where the roots of ancient mountains and the slippery graphite that helped build them can still be found, in places like Harris, Tiree and Gairloch.
Study co-author Dr Connor Brolly, from the University of Glasgow, said:Graphite buried in the earth's crust is in high demand for future green technology, for use in things like fuel cells and lithium ion batteries. It is interesting to think that this two billion year old event, responsible for the formation of our natural world, now has the potential to play a key role in preserving it for future generations .
Professor Parnell added:Ultimately, what our research has shown is that the key to the formation of mountains was life, showing that the Earth and its biosphere are intimately linked in ways not previously understood. .