中国科学院南京地质古生物研究所机构知识库

The expansion of land plants is considered to have played a key role in triggering the Late Paleozoic Ice Age (LPIA), but evidence linking climatic events to terrestrial floral changes is limited. Here, we generated bulk carbonate delta C-13, conodont delta O-18 and Sr-87/Sr-86 profiles from the lowermost Carboniferous of South China and Vietnam in order to investigate their relationship to contemporaneous land plant evolution. Climatic cooling in the mid-Tournaisian coincided with large perturbations to the global carbon cycle and continental weathering regimes as well as with a major diversification episode among seed plants. These relationships are consistent with terrestrial floral changes triggering intensified weathering of basalts (i.e., lower Sr-87/Sr-86) enhanced marine productivity (i.e., higher delta C-13(carb)), and reduced atmospheric pCO(2) and attendant global cooling (i.e., higher conodont delta O-13). The results of our study suggest that expansion of terrestrial floras was a key driver of Early Carboniferous climate change. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.