Plate Tectonics And The Air We Breathe

Geological movements of Earth’s crust have contributed to the planet’s nitrogen-rich atmosphere, according to research carried out at the Carnegie Institution of Washington (Nat. Geosci. 2014, DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2271). In areas where crustal plates collide and one plate subducts under the other, the subducting plate carries with it water and other materials that help create an oxidizing environment in the molten mantle beneath the overlying plate. The oxidizing environment favors formation of N₂ in the mantle, compared with NH₄⁺ in other areas, according to thermodynamic calculations done by Sami Mikhail, now at Bristol University, in England, and Dimitri A. Sverjensky of Johns Hopkins University. The N₂ then degases to the atmosphere through volcanic emissions. The processes likely enriched Earth’s atmosphere in N₂ starting in the early Archean period, about 3.5 billion years ago. “Plate tectonics has literally changed the air life breathes,” Mikhail says. In contrast to Earth, Mars and Venus lack plate tectonics and their atmospheres contain far less N₂.