A new study suggests that major earthquakes in Italy are linked to hidden carbon dioxide emissions

When an earthquake struck the mountainous Italian city of L’Aquila in April 2009, few people believed carbon dioxide had something to do with it. But geologists were on the issue right away.

Immediately after the L’Aquila earthquake, a team from the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology began measuring carbon dioxide that was spewing up in nearby springs, in the hope of discovering ground processes – apart from plate tectonics – that might have caused the seismic shock.

They continued to sample spring water through 2018, and compare pulses of dissolved carbon dioxide that originated deep in the Earth’s depths with records of seismic activity. At that time, two major earthquakes struck the area.

L’Aquila is nestled between the Apennine mountain range that stretches along the Italian peninsula. Under L’Aquila, northeast of Rome, are the aquifers that supply the surface springs. This is where researchers can measure carbon dioxide emissions from below.

Carbon dioxide expulsions have been measured in earthquake zones in the Apennines and elsewhere before – for example, at points along the East African fault that passes through Ethiopia to Mozambique.

But this decade-long geochemical investigation reveals, for the first time, the relationship between earthquakes and buried carbon dioxide escaping along fault lines through springs and vents over time. It hints at just how strong carbon dioxide is underground, and could bolster predictions of upcoming earthquakes.

The rise of buried carbon dioxide begins when the tectonic plates down the Apennine Mountain Range together, heat and melt the carbonate rocks that make them up, and release the carbon dioxide stored inside them.

The gas accumulates steadily in reservoirs 10 to 15 kilometers (6-9 miles) underground, and dissolves in aquifers that it meets on its way to the surface.

Measuring carbon content at 36 springs around L’Aquila between 2009 and 2018, researchers have shown how this process corresponds to earthquake activity.

“The inter-earthquakes of the past decade are clearly linked to the rise of deeply-derived carbon dioxide,” they said in a press release.

The amount of deep carbon dioxide dissolved in the spring water increased and decreased in parallel with the number and intensity of earthquakes over time. Emissions peaked during major earthquakes and periods of intense seismic activity, and then decreased as the energy of the earthquake and its aftershocks decreased.

Carbon dioxide reaches the surface in spring near the epicenter of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake (Giovanni Chiudini, INGV)

We can’t say yet whether the carbon dioxide uprising caused any earthquakes, or whether the emissions were just an afterthought that resembles belching. However, researchers believe that carbon dioxide is constantly rising from great depths, weakening shell fractures as pressure builds.

They also have a hunch that the first jolts of an earthquake might cause more gas bubbles to suddenly release from deep tanks of carbon dioxide – just like the bubbles bursting you see after shaking a soda bottle – and cause more aftershocks.

“The analysis of groundwater makes it possible to investigate relatively large areas and related tectonic processes on a regional scale,” the authors said.

With their measurements, researchers can now estimate the total amount of carbon dioxide expelled over a decade via tectonic activity in this part of the Apennines.

Their answer: 1.8 million tons of carbon, the same amount of carbon dioxide that explodes into the atmosphere when a volcano explodes. It is also comparable to the carbon emitted from 350,000 cars driven for a year.

What this study shows is that large amounts of carbon dioxide are cleared from fault lines in the Earth’s crust, mostly undetected (although these emissions do not come close to the billions of tons of human activities that they emit). However, with the future climate of our planet remaining in balance, this source is something we must bear in mind in our carbon budgets.

“The study of groundwater in tectonically active areas will be a powerful tool to better estimate the global budget for tectonic carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere,” the researchers said.

They plan to install a monitoring system in the Apennines to help further analyzes, and to test whether rising carbon dioxide could warn of earthquake activity. The more measurements the better.

“We hope that continuous monitoring of water eyes is the best way to deeply track the resulting CO2 emissions to better understand the causal relationship with earthquakes,” the team said.

The study has been published in Science Advances.

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