Although rare earth element (REE) has been widely applied for provenance study and paleoenvironmental reconstruction, its mobility and fractionation during earth surface processes from weathering to sediment deposition remain more clarification. We investigated the REE fractionations during chemical weathering and river sediment transport based on the systematic observations from a granodiorite‐weathering profile and Mulanxi River sediments in southeast China. Two chemical phases (leachates and residues) were separated by 1 N HCl leaching and the leachates account for 20–70% of the bulk REE concentration. REEs in the weathering profile have been mobilized and fractionated to different extents during chemical weathering and pedogenesis. Remarkable cerium anomalies (Ce/Ce* = 0.1–10.6) occur during weathering as a result of coprecipitation with Mn (hydro)oxides in the profile, while poor or no Ce anomalies in the river sediments were observed. This contrasting feature sheds new light on the indication of Ce anomaly for redox change. The hydraulic sorting‐induced mineral redistribution can further homogenize the weathering and pedogenic alterations and thus weaken the REE fractionations in river sediments. The mineral assemblage is the ultimate control on REE composition, and the Mn‐Fe (hydro)oxides and secondary phosphate minerals are the main hosts of acid‐leachable REEs while the clay minerals could be important reservoirs for residual REEs. We thus suggest that the widely used REE proxies such as (LREE/HREE)UCC ratio in the residues is reliable for the indication of sediment provenance, while the ratio in the leachates can indicate the total weathering process to some extent.
The East China Sea is characterized by wide continental shelf receiving a huge input of terrigenous matter from both large rivers and mountainous rivers, which makes it an ideal natural laboratory for studying sediment source‐to‐sink transport processes. This paper presents mineralogical and geochemical data of the clays and bulk sediments from the rivers entering the East China Sea, aiming to investigate the general driving mechanism of silicate weathering and sediment transport processes in East Asian continental margin. Two types of river systems, tectonically stable continental rivers and tectonically active mountainous rivers, coexist in East Asia. As the direct weathering products, clays can better reflect the silicate weathering regimes within the two river systems. Provenance rock types are not the dominant factor causing silicate weathering intensity difference existed in the East Asian rivers. The silicate weathering intensity of tectonically stable river basins is primarily driven by monsoon climate, and the sediment transfer is relatively slow because of natural trapping process and increasing damming effect. The geochemistry of these river‐borne sediments can thus indicate paleo‐weathering intensities in East Asian continent. In contrast, silicate weathering intensity in tectonically active mountainous rivers is greatly limited by strong physical erosion despite the high temperature and highest monsoon rainfall. The factors controlling silicate weathering in tectonically active catchments are complex and thus, it should be prudent to use river sediment records to decipher paleoclimate change. These two different silicate weathering regimes and sediment transport processes are manifestations of the landscape evolution and overall dominate the sedimentation in Asian continental margin.
Silicate weathering as an important negative feedback can regulate the Earth’s climate over time, but much debate concerns its response strength to each climatic factor and its evolution with land surface reorganisation. Such discrepancy arises from lacking weathering proxy validation and scarce quantitative paleo-constraints on individual forcing factors. Here we examine the catchment-scale link of silicate weathering intensity with various environmental parameters using a global compilation of modern sediment dataset (n = 3828). We show the primary control of temperature on silicate weathering given the monotonic increase of feldspar dissolution with it (0–30 °C), while controls of precipitation or topographic-lithological factors are regional and subordinate. We interpret the non-linear forcing of temperature on feldspar dissolution as depletion of more reactive plagioclase (relative to orthoclase) at higher temperature. Our results hint at stronger temperature-weathering feedback at lower surface temperature and support the hypothesis of increased land surface reactivity during the late Cenozoic cooling.
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