A study links buried carbon dioxide rise to earthquakes in Italy

August 26 (UPI) – Geoscientists have discovered a link between carbon dioxide discharge patterns and earthquake occurrences in Italy’s Apennine Mountains, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

Over millions of years, carbon dioxide is trapped in the atmosphere in rocks and minerals called carbonates through a variety of chemical and biological processes. As tectonic forces heat up and melt deep rocks, carbon dioxide is released and slowly rises towards the surface.

According to the new study, the process is closely related to earthquakes.

Researchers discovered for the first time a spatial relationship between seismic regions on Earth and evidence of deep carbon dioxide emissions during the 1970s. In 2004, the authors of the last research paper were able to show that deep discharge of carbon dioxide and seismic activity are correlated across Italy.

“Now, with this work, we observe that peaks in the deep flux of carbon dioxide occur in conjunction with the more active earthquakes while the gas flow decreases when the seismic energy and the number of earthquakes decrease,” lead author Giovanni Chioudini told UPI in an email.

“This link for a relatively long period of time is a new finding that indicates the existence of a causal relationship between earthquakes and the emptying of gases,” said Chiudini, a researcher at the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.

Between 2009 and 2018, researchers in Italy regularly measured the amount of carbon dioxide in freshwater springs fed by two major groundwater reservoirs near the epicenter of the L’Aquila earthquake that devastated many cities and towns in the Abruzzo region of central Italy in 2009.

Because different carbon sources produce different ratios of carbon isotopes, the researchers were able to isolate the carbon emitted from deep rocks from the carbon released from other sources.

By measuring the isotopic composition of dissolved carbon in water samples, the researchers were able to determine the changes in the amounts of carbon dioxide emitted by tectonic discharges over time.

“For each sample, we determined the concentration of carbon derived from the deep source,” said Chiudini. “Using this approach, we exclude from the calculation carbon dioxide derived from other processes such as shallow dissolution of calcite and the fraction of carbon dioxide dissolved by water during leaching into soils containing organic matter.”

The data showed that increases in carbon dioxide emissions from deep sources were closely related to increases in local seismic activity. They said researchers are not yet sure whether removing carbon dioxide gas directly causes earthquakes, or whether tectonic movements simply allow more carbon dioxide to reach the surface.

There is likely to be a little bit of both, but the researchers said the data and results of other studies indicated a causal relationship.

“It is not possible to respond unequivocally at that time,” Chiudini said. “We believe, however, that continuous production in the depths of large quantities of gas – mostly derived from decarbonization of carbonate-rich fusion rocks – could be instrumental in the formation of earthquakes and, in general, in the region’s tectonics.”

The researchers said they hope that by continuing to monitor the release of carbon dioxide in places with high tectonic activity, they will be able to isolate predictive patterns that might help scientists more accurately estimate earthquake risks at specific locations.

Meanwhile, the researchers are suggesting that their findings could be used to improve carbon cycle models.

“This and other previous work shows how large amounts of carbon dioxide deep in groundwater can be dissolved,” said Chiudini. “This important part of the land’s dumping in general, is not considered in the global budget for the carbon dioxide naturally emitted from the earth, and at present, it is underestimated.”

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