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Earth’s silicate weathering continuum

Nature Geoscience volume 18, pages 691–701 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Chemical weathering of silicate rocks redistributes major, minor and trace elements through coupled dissolution–precipitation reactions. These weathering processes drive shifts in ocean acid–base chemistry, modulating atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and providing a stabilizing feedback in the carbon cycle. Silicate weathering occurs in both terrestrial and marine environments, releasing (‘forward’) or consuming alkalinity (‘reverse’), but these have largely been perceived as independent and studied in isolation. However, weathering products are transported downstream across terrestrial and to marine environments, suggesting a dynamic coupling of these weathering processes across scales. Here we propose that the Earth’s silicate weathering occurs along a continuum linking mountains to the deepest sedimentary environments and forward to reverse weathering. In this framework, the magnitude and direction of a local weathering flux depends on the materials’ origin, weathering–erosion history and environmental conditions. Consequently, global silicate weathering fluxes and the long-term carbon cycle feedback may be governed by the dynamic interplay of various environments along the silicate weathering continuum.

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Fig. 1: Summary of selected weathering environments and processes along Earth’s weathering continuum.
Fig. 2: Illustration of hypothetical endmember scenarios.

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All data are available as a supplement to the online version of this document or upon request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Exel and M. Mullen-Pouw (both Utrecht University) for helping with workshop organization, and thank T. Markus (Utrecht University) for his patience and skill while illustrating Earth’s silicate weathering continuum. This work was carried out under the umbrella of the Netherlands Earth System Science Center (NESSC) and supported by an NESSC workshop grant. The project has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement 847504. D.J.C. and A.S. thank the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme for grants 833454 and 771497, respectively. D.J.C. also received a grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. D.J.J.v.H. acknowledges NWO-Vici grant 865.17.001. J.C.R. received funding from the Colorado State University Warner College Dean’s Transdisciplinary Travel Grant. N.J.P. acknowledges support from NASA ICAR Alternative Earths grant. A.N.-S. received funding from NSF grant numbers EAR-1554502 and EAR-2012730. W.-L.H. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the Consolidator Grant (Project 101087884—MadSilica), Ragnar Söderbergs stiftelse (project 1/22-A) and STINT (Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education) (project MG2022-9391).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Gerrit Trapp-Müller, Sonja Geilert, Paul R. D. Mason, Jack J. Middelburg, Gert-Jan Reichart, Appy Sluijs, Douwe J. J. van Hinsbergen & Xu Y. Zhang

  2. Department of Geosciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Jeremy Caves Rugenstein

  3. Department of Geology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Daniel J. Conley

  4. Soil Chemistry, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Mathilde Hagens

  5. Department of Geological Sciences, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Wei-Li Hong

  6. LEGOS (CNRS, UT3, IRD, CNES, Université de Toulouse), Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse, France

    Catherine Jeandel

  7. School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK

    Jack Longman

  8. Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Kitty L. Milliken

  9. Geology and Geological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA

    Alexis Navarre-Sitchler

  10. Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Noah J. Planavsky

  11. Department of Ocean Systems, NIOZ, Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Texel, The Netherlands

    Gert-Jan Reichart

  12. Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Caroline P. Slomp

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Contributions

G.T.-M. organized and conceptualized the workshop resulting in this article with the help of J.J.M., A.S. and S.G. All authors helped in conceptualizing the article and figures. G.T.-M. drafted the Abstract, The silicate weathering continuum, Carbon cycle dynamics and shared forcings, Conclusions and Box 1 with inputs from all authors. G.T.-M., C.J. and J.J.M. wrote the introductory section. S.G., A.S. and G.T.-M. wrote Short timescales with inputs from G.-J.R. J.C.R. and G.T.-M. wrote Box 2 and The rise of land plants. J.L., G.T.-M. and A.S. wrote Eocene global warming events. P.R.D.M. and G.T.-M. wrote The emergence of continents with edits from D.J.J.v.H. N.J.P. and G.T.-M. wrote Permian–Triassic boundary. G.T.-M., K.L.M., J.L., W.-L.H., X.Y.Z., D.J.J.v.H., M.H. and J.J.M. contributed particularly to Understanding, reconstructing and predicting weathering. J.C.R. coded the carbon cycle model with inputs from G.T.-M. and N.J.P. G.T.-M. and J.J.M. edited the manuscript. All authors helped in reviewing and improving the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gerrit Trapp-Müller.

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Peer review information

Nature Geoscience thanks Shouye Yang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Tamara Goldin, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Fig. 1, Note 1 and Table 1.

Supplementary Data 1

MATLAB scripts for reproducing the data and figure discussed in Box 1.

Supplementary Data 2

R script for the carbon cycle model discussed in Box 2.

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Trapp-Müller, G., Caves Rugenstein, J., Conley, D.J. et al. Earth’s silicate weathering continuum. Nat. Geosci. 18, 691–701 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01743-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01743-y

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