From icehouses to hothouses – understanding the links between Earth crises and large-scale magmatism through time

Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs) are exceptional magmatic events that constitute the most significant outpourings of lava on Earth.

Many LIPs are linked to environmental crises, including the 721 Ma Franklin LIP, coeval with Proterozoic “Snowball Earth” and the 252 Ma Siberian LIP, coeval with end-Permian global warming and mass extinction. Despite decades of research, the mechanisms underlying these links remain contentious.

One of the most provocative hypotheses posits that magma-sediment interactions in the shallow crust can liberate volatiles (carbon, sulfur, and halogens) from carbonaceous and evaporitic sedimentary rocks such as anhydrite (CaSO4), halite (NaCl), coal (organic C), and carbonate (CaCO3).

If these volatiles reached the atmosphere and oceans, they could have caused perturbations to global carbon and sulfur cycles, with knock-on effects on climate and planetary habitability.

This proposal seeks to know the origin and fate of volatiles during LIP activity by utilising a novel experimental and geochemical approach.

High pressure-temperature magma-sediment interaction experiments will be coupled with analysis of volatiles in experiments and natural LIP samples.

This research strategy will help to fundamentally improve our understanding of volatile remobilisation by LIP magmatism, with far-reaching implications for triggering of deep time climate changes, mass extinctions, exoplanet habitability, and Earth system responses to present and future climate changes.