The rise of New Guinea and the fall of Neogene global temperatures

Abstract

The ∼2,000-km-long Central Range of New Guinea is a hotspot of modern carbon sequestration due to the chemical weathering of igneous rocks with steep topography in the warm wet tropics. These high mountains formed in a collision between the Australian plate and ophiolite-bearing volcanic arc terranes, but poor resolution of the uplift and exhumation history has precluded assessments of the impact on global climate change. Here, we develop a palinspastic reconstruction of the Central Range orogen with existing surface geological constraints and seismic data to generate time-temperature paths and estimate volumes of eroded material. New (U-Th)/ He thermochronology data reveal rapid uplift and regional denudation between 10 and 6 Mya. Erosion fluxes from the palinspastic reconstruction, calibrated for time with the thermochronological data, were used as input to a coupled global climate and weathering model. This model estimates 0.6 to 1.2 °C of cooling associated with the Late Miocene rise of New Guinea due to increased silicate weathering alone, and this CO2 sink continues to the present. Our data and modeling experiments support the hypothesis that tropical arc-continent collision and the rise of New Guinea contributed to Neogene cooling due to increased silicate weathering.