Effects of atmospheric CO2 consumption on rock weathering in the Pearl River basin, China

Abstract

Atmospheric CO2 is absorbed and dissolved in water via karst processes not only in carbonate rock areas, but in all rock areas of the earth. The chemical and isotopic analysis results, particularly of strontium, for water samples collected from eleven stations along the Pearl River, four times over the course of one year, showed that due to weathering by carbonate or silicate rocks, HCO3-, Ca2+, and Mg2+ have become the main ions in the river water. Through river ion stoichiometric and flux calculations, the carbonate rock weathering rate and atmospheric CO2 consumption were found to be 27.6 mm/ka and 540 x 103 mol/km2.a, which are 10.8 and 6.7 times the corresponding values for silicate rock. With the beneficial climatic conditions for rock erosion and large areas of carbonate rock in the Pearl River Basin, the atmospheric CO2 consumption value is about 2.6 times the average value for the 60 major rivers in the world.