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Strong tectonic and weak climatic control of long-term chemical weathering rates

¹ Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-4767, USA
² Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
³ Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94551, USA

The relationships among climate, physical erosion, and chemical weathering have remained uncertain, because long-term chemical weathering rates have been difficult to measure. Here we show that long-term chemical weathering rates can be measured by combining physical erosion rates, inferred from cosmogenic nuclides, with dissolution losses, inferred from the rock-to-soil enrichment of insoluble elements. We used this method to measure chemical weathering rates across 22 mountainous granitic catchments that span a wide range of erosion rates and climates. Chemical weathering rates correlate strongly with physical erosion rates but only weakly with climate, implying that, by regulating erosion rates, tectonic uplift may significantly accelerate chemical weathering rates in granitic landscapes.

Key Words: geochemical mass balance • cosmogenic nuclides • chemical weathering rates • climate

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