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Explosive volcanic eruptions can act as carbon sinks
Pierre Delmelle1, Sébastien Biass2, Mathilde Paque3
1Environmental Sciences, Earth and Life Institute, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. pierre.delmelle@uclouvain.be.
Nature Communications
|May 9, 2025
Summary
Volcanic eruptions bury significant soil organic carbon, creating a regional carbon sink. This tephra burial process stores more carbon than emitted by the eruptions, making volcanism a net carbon-negative event.
Area of Science:
- Earth Science
- Soil Science
- Volcanology
Background:
- Volcanic soils, despite covering ~1% of land, hold over 5% of global soil organic carbon.
- Tephra deposition from explosive eruptions is a poorly quantified process for carbon storage in volcanic soils.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify the carbon storage potential of tephra-buried soils.
- To assess the net carbon impact of explosive volcanism on volcanic regions.
Main Methods:
- Field measurements of carbon burial by tephra.
- Development of a modeling framework to estimate Holocene carbon storage.
- Comparison of stored carbon with CO2 emissions from source eruptions.
Main Results:
- Single volcanic eruptions can bury substantial amounts of stable organic carbon.
- An estimated 1.1 Pg C is stored in Ecuador's volcanic soils due to Holocene tephra deposition.
- The stored carbon stock exceeds the cumulative CO2 emissions from the responsible eruptions.
Conclusions:
- Explosive volcanism acts as a significant regional carbon sink through repeated burial of organic carbon.
- Tephra-induced carbon burial in volcanic soils results in net carbon-negative events over time.
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