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Hydrological control of river and seawater lithium isotopes

Zhang, Fei; Dellinger, Mathieu; Hilton, Robert G.; Yu, Jimin; Allen, Mark B.; Densmore, Alexander L.; Sun, Hui; Jin, Zhangdong

Hydrological control of river and seawater lithium isotopes Thumbnail


Authors

Fei Zhang

Mathieu Dellinger

Robert G. Hilton

Jimin Yu

Hui Sun

Zhangdong Jin



Abstract

Seawater lithium isotopes (δ7Li) record changes over Earth history, including a ∼9‰ increase during the Cenozoic interpreted as reflecting either a change in continental silicate weathering rate or weathering feedback strength, associated with tectonic uplift. However, mechanisms controlling the dissolved δ7Li remain debated. Here we report time-series δ7Li measurements from Tibetan and Pamir rivers, and combine them with published seasonal data, covering small (<102  km2) to large rivers (>106 km2). We find seasonal changes in δ7Li across all latitudes: dry seasons consistently have higher δ7Li than wet seasons, by −0.3‰ to 16.4‰ (mean 5.0 ± 2.5‰). A globally negative correlation between δ7Li and annual runoff reflects the hydrological intensity operating in catchments, regulating water residence time and δ7Li values. This hydrological control on δ7Li is consistent across climate events back to ~445 Ma. We propose that hydrological changes result in shifts in river δ7Li and urge reconsideration of its use to examine past weathering intensity and flux, opening a new window to reconstruct hydrological conditions.

Citation

Zhang, F., Dellinger, M., Hilton, R. G., Yu, J., Allen, M. B., Densmore, A. L., Sun, H., & Jin, Z. (2022). Hydrological control of river and seawater lithium isotopes. Nature Communications, 13(1), Article 3359. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31076-y

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 1, 2022
Online Publication Date Jun 10, 2022
Publication Date 2022
Deposit Date Jul 19, 2022
Publicly Available Date Jul 19, 2022
Journal Nature Communications
Publisher Nature Research
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 13
Issue 1
Article Number 3359
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31076-y
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1197437

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.






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