Some illustrations of large tectonically driven climate changes in Earth history

Nearly A century ago the pioneering book published in 1924 “Die Klimate der geologischen Vorzeit “ explained by plate motion the evolution of vegetation revealed in sedimentary records. Nevertheless, they did not invoke climate changes. In the second part of the 20th century the intricate relationship between tectonics, long-term carbon cycle and climate was depicted by James G. C. Walker (1981). Since these major steps, climate modeling of the Earth system kept on improving and including more and more components and processes to enable the investigation of deep time periods using general circulation model that can account for atmosphere and ocean dynamics. Here we illustrate long but drastic climate changes clearly related with tectonics, through three different examples:

1)  The crucial role of paleogeography (continental distribution) to explain the drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide and the huge glaciation associated that occured during the Neoproterozoic period.

2)  The shrinkage of large epicontinental Paratethys that covered a large part of Eastern Europe and Western Asia and its impact on both monsoonal systems (African and Asian) since 40 Ma.

3) The large impact of mountain range uplifts since Eocene both in Asia (Tibetan Plateau and Himalaya) and in Africa (buildup of the rift), on atmosphere and ocean dynamics.

These studies not only allow for testing the ability of Earth system models to capture long term changes of Earth climate, but they pinpoint the pivotal role tectonics played in shaping the long-term evolution of atmospheric CO2 and monsoon patterns.