EarthN: A new Earth System Nitrogen Model

Abstract

The amount of nitrogen in the atmosphere, oceans, crust, and mantle have important ramifications for Earth's biologic and geologic history. Despite this importance, the history and cycling of nitrogen in the Earth system is poorly constrained over time. For example, various models and proxies contrastingly support atmospheric mass stasis, net outgassing, or net ingassing over time. In addition, the amount available to and processing of nitrogen by organisms is intricately linked with and provides feedbacks on oxygen and nutrient cycles. To investigate the Earth system nitrogen cycle over geologic history, we have constructed a new nitrogen cycle model: EarthN. This model is driven by mantle cooling, links biologic nitrogen cycling to phosphate and oxygen, and incorporates geologic and biologic fluxes. Model output is consistent with large (2-4x) changes in atmospheric mass over time, typically indicating atmospheric drawdown and nitrogen sequestration into the mantle and continental crust. Critical controls on nitrogen distribution include mantle cooling history, weathering, and the total Bulk Silicate Earth+atmosphere nitrogen budget. Linking the nitrogen cycle to phosphorous and oxygen levels, instead of carbon as has been previously done, provides new and more dynamic insight into the history of nitrogen on the planet.

arXiv comment36 pages, 12 figures

References in corpus (6)

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• The young Sun's XUV-activity as a constraint for lower CO${}_2$-limits in the Earth's Archean atmosphere
• Oxygen False Positives on Habitable Zone Planets Around Sun-Like Stars
• Life as the Only Reason for the Existence of N2-O2-Dominated Atmospheres
• Possible Atmospheric Diversity of Low Mass Exoplanets, some Central Aspects
• Modification of the radioactive heat budget of Earth-like exoplanets by the loss of primordial atmospheres
• The Cosmic Shoreline Revisited: A Metric for Atmospheric Retention Informed by Hydrodynamic Escape
• Constraining Background N2 Inventories on Directly Imaged Terrestrial Exoplanets to Rule Out O2 False Positives
• The origin of Earth's mantle nitrogen: primordial or early biogeochemical cycling?