A study revealing the geological evolution of the Earth over the past 100 million years

A French-Australian collaboration has built a new dynamic model of the evolution of the Earth’s surface over the past 100 million years, providing detailed insight into how its current geophysical properties are shaped.

Detailed look at the evolution of the Earth’s surface

As precipitation affects sediment and nutrient flux over millions of years, the planet’s surface and the Earth’s and ocean ecosystems are being reshaped. These changes also affect the amount of Carbon Dioxide They are released into the atmosphere as new organisms appear, old ones disappear and their habitats shift.

In the course of the work published in the journal scienceResearchers from the Institute of Geosciences (CNRS), École Normale Supérieure, University of Grenoble, University of Lyon and University of Sydney have combined geodynamic, tectonic and climate data to create a high-resolution model of the geological evolution of our planet over 100 million years. Each image corresponds to a million years of change.

” If you’re looking for a continuous model of river basin interaction, erosion on a global scale, and high-resolution sediment deposition over the past 100 million years, this simply wasn’t there. So this is a big step forward. says Tristan Sales, from the University of Sydney.

Main effects

According to the authors of the new study, a better understanding of the flow of terrestrial sediments into marine environments is essential to understanding the current chemistry of the oceans, which are rapidly changing due to Climate change mankind.

The new model will also allow scientists to test different hypotheses regarding how a surface Land Responding to climate change and tectonic factors, showing how terrestrial sediment transport regulates the carbon cycle on our planet over millions of years.

” This idea of ​​being able to simulate the evolution of the surface over a hundred million years has really important consequences for understanding different aspects of the system. Sales concludes.