地球上二氧化碳的影响.pdfVIP

C A R B O N D I O X I D E O N T H E E A R L Y E A R T H JAMES C. G. WALKER Space Physics Research Laboratory, Department of Atmospheric and OceanicScience, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, U.S.A. (Received 6 September; in revised form 10 December, 1985) Abstract. This paper uses arguments of geochemical mass balance to arrive at an estimate of the partial pressure of carbon dioxide in the terrestrial atmosphere very early in earth history. It appears that this partial pressure could have been as large as 10bars. This large estimate depends on two key considerations. First, volatiles were driven out of the interior of the earth during the course of earth accretion or very shortly thereafter. This early degassing was a consequence of rapid accretion, which gave the young earth a hot and rapidly convecting interior. Second, the early earth lacked extensive, stable continental plat- forms on which carbon could be stored in the form of carbonate minerals for geologically significant periods of time. In the absence of continental platforms on the early earth, the earths carbon must have been either in the atmosphere or ocean or in the form of shortlived sedimentary deposits on ephemeral sea floor. 1. Introduction A widely accepted scenario for the origin o f the atmospheres o f the inner planets holds that they were released from the planetary interiors rapidly and very early in the history o f the solar system. As a completely separate matter it is also widely believed that the early earth lacked extensive, stable continental platforms. The implication o f these two hypotheses for the history o f c