Oxygen escape from the Earth during geomagnetic reversals: Implications   to mass extinction

doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2014.03.018

CORC > 北京大学 > 地球与空间科学学院

	Oxygen escape from the Earth during geomagnetic reversals: Implications to mass extinction
	Wei, Yong ; Pu, Zuyin ; Zong, Qiugang ; Wan, Weixing ; Ren, Zhipeng ; Fraenz, Markus ; Dubinin, Eduard ; Tian, Feng ; Shi, Quanqi ; Fu, Suiyan ; Hong, Minghua
刊名	earth and planetary science letters
	2014
关键词	atmospheric ion escape geomagnetic reversal mass extinction ION OUTFLOW ATMOSPHERIC OXYGEN SOLAR MINIMUM EVOLUTION IONOSPHERE LATITUDE MODEL
DOI	10.1016/j.epsl.2014.03.018
英文摘要	The evolution of life is affected by variations of atmospheric oxygen level and geomagnetic field intensity. Oxygen can escape into interplanetary space as ions after gaining momentum from solar wind, but Earth's strong dipole field reduces the momentum transfer efficiency and the ion outflow rate, except for the time of geomagnetic polarity reversals when the field is significantly weakened in strength and becomes Mars-like in morphology. The newest databases available for the Phanerozoic era illustrate that the reversal rate increased and the atmospheric oxygen level decreased when the marine diversity showed a gradual pattern of mass extinctions lasting millions of years. We propose that accumulated oxygen escape during an interval of increased reversal rate could have led to the catastrophic drop of oxygen level, which is known to be a cause of mass extinction. We simulated the oxygen ion escape rate for the Triassic-Jurassic event, using a modified Martian ion escape model with an input of quiet solar wind inferred from Sun-like stars. The results show that geomagnetic reversal could enhance the oxygen escape rate by 3-4 orders only if the magnetic field was extremely weak, even without consideration of space weather effects. This suggests that our hypothesis could be a possible explanation of a correlation between geomagnetic reversals and mass extinction. Therefore, if this causal relation indeed exists, it should be a "many-to-one" scenario rather the previously considered "one-to-one", and planetary magnetic field should be much more important than previously thought for planetary habitability. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.; http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000335613300010&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=8e1609b174ce4e31116a60747a720701 ; Geochemistry & Geophysics; SCI(E); EI; 9; ARTICLE; weiy@mail.iggcas.ac.cn; 94-98; 394
语种	英语
内容类型	期刊论文
源URL	[http://ir.pku.edu.cn/handle/20.500.11897/155465]
专题	地球与空间科学学院
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Wei, Yong,Pu, Zuyin,Zong, Qiugang,et al. Oxygen escape from the Earth during geomagnetic reversals: Implications to mass extinction[J]. earth and planetary science letters,2014.
APA	Wei, Yong.,Pu, Zuyin.,Zong, Qiugang.,Wan, Weixing.,Ren, Zhipeng.,...&Hong, Minghua.(2014).Oxygen escape from the Earth during geomagnetic reversals: Implications to mass extinction.earth and planetary science letters.
MLA	Wei, Yong,et al."Oxygen escape from the Earth during geomagnetic reversals: Implications to mass extinction".earth and planetary science letters (2014).