Continental configuration controls ocean oxygenation during the Phanerozoic

Pohl, Alexandre; Ridgwell, Andy; Stockey, Richard G.; Thomazo, Christophe; Keane, Andrew; Vennin, Emmanuelle; Scotese, Christopher R.

Continental configuration controls ocean oxygenation during the Phanerozoic

dc.contributor.author	Pohl, Alexandre	en
dc.contributor.author	Ridgwell, Andy	en
dc.contributor.author	Stockey, Richard G.	en
dc.contributor.author	Thomazo, Christophe	en
dc.contributor.author	Keane, Andrew	en
dc.contributor.author	Vennin, Emmanuelle	en
dc.contributor.author	Scotese, Christopher R.	en
dc.contributor.funder	Heising-Simons Foundation	en
dc.contributor.funder	Horizon 2020	en
dc.contributor.funder	National Science Foundation	en
dc.date.accessioned	2025-05-06T10:56:10Z
dc.date.available	2025-05-06T10:56:10Z
dc.date.issued	2022-08-17	en
dc.description.abstract	The early evolutionary and much of the extinction history of marine animals is thought to be driven by changes in dissolved oxygen concentrations ([O2]) in the ocean1,2,3. In turn, [O2] is widely assumed to be dominated by the geological history of atmospheric oxygen (pO2)4,5. Here, by contrast, we show by means of a series of Earth system model experiments how continental rearrangement during the Phanerozoic Eon drives profound variations in ocean oxygenation and induces a fundamental decoupling in time between upper-ocean and benthic [O2]. We further identify the presence of state transitions in the global ocean circulation, which lead to extensive deep-ocean anoxia developing in the early Phanerozoic even under modern pO2. Our finding that ocean oxygenation oscillates over stable thousand-year (kyr) periods also provides a causal mechanism that might explain elevated rates of metazoan radiation and extinction during the early Palaeozoic Era6. The absence, in our modelling, of any simple correlation between global climate and ocean ventilation, and the occurrence of profound variations in ocean oxygenation independent of atmospheric pO2, presents a challenge to the interpretation of marine redox proxies, but also points to a hitherto unrecognized role for continental configuration in the evolution of the biosphere.	en
dc.description.sponsorship	Horizon 2020 (838373); National Science Foundation (1736771; EAR-2121165)	en
dc.description.status	Peer reviewed	en
dc.description.version	Accepted Version	en
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.citation	Pohl, A., Ridgwell, A., Stockey, R. G., Thomazo, C., Keane, A., Vennin, E. and Scotese, C. R. (2022) 'Continental configuration controls ocean oxygenation during the Phanerozoic', Nature, 608(7923), pp.523-527. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05018-z	en
dc.identifier.doi	10.1038/s41586-022-05018-z	en
dc.identifier.eissn	1476-4687	en
dc.identifier.endpage	527	en
dc.identifier.issn	0028-0836	en
dc.identifier.issued	7923	en
dc.identifier.journaltitle	Nature	en
dc.identifier.startpage	523	en
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10468/17393
dc.identifier.volume	608	en
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.publisher	Springer Nature	en
dc.relation.ispartof	Nature	en
dc.relation.project	info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020::MSCA-IF-GF/838373/EU/Biological pump Sensitivity and climate change: InterroGatiNg past environmentAL perturbations/BioSIGNAL	en
dc.rights	© 2022, the Authors, under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Nature. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05018-z	en
dc.subject	Biosphere	en
dc.subject	Marine animals	en
dc.subject	Extinction	en
dc.subject	Deep-ocean anoxia	en
dc.subject	Early Phanerozoic	en
dc.title	Continental configuration controls ocean oxygenation during the Phanerozoic	en
dc.type	Article (peer-reviewed)	en
dc.type	journal-article	en
oaire.citation.issue	7923	en
oaire.citation.volume	608	en