CEMENT | Climatic Effects of Magmatic Emissions from the Neo-Tethyan margin
Quantification of magmatic CO2 emissions from the Neo-Tethyan margin and associated climatic effects.
By preventing all the Earth’s carbon to be released into the oceans and atmosphere or to be stored within rocks, the geological carbon cycle acts as a global long term thermostat, linking the evolution of climate and life to plate tectonics. The uncertainty regarding CO2 emissions from continental magmatic arcs, a primary natural input of carbon into the ocean and atmosphere, is currently the greatest limitation to our quantitative understanding of the geological carbon cycle. The high-gain target of CEMENT is to reconstruct the time history of magmatic CO2 emissions from the Neo-Tethyan convergent plate margin and its critical contribution to early Cenozoic climate changes. This ambitious goal will be achieved by iterative geologic data acquisition and state-of-the-art numerical modeling.
Publications
Petroccia, A., Giuntoli, F., Pilia, S., Viola, G., Sternai, P., & Callegari, I. (2025). Sustained strain localisation and coeval brittle-ductile deformation in an exhuming low-grade shear zone: Insights from the Saih Hatat Window (NE Oman). Journal of Structural Geology, 191, 105328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsg.2024.105328
Zaki, A. S., Delaunay, A., Baby, G., Haghipour, N., Blanchet, C., Dallmeyer, A., Sternai, P., … & Castelltort, S. (2025). Monsoonal imprint on late Quaternary landscapes of the Rub’al Khali Desert. Communications Earth & Environment, 6(1), 255. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02224-1
Castrogiovanni, L., Sternai, P., Agostinetti, N. P., & Pasquero, C. (2025). A reversible-jump Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm to estimate paleo surface CO2 fluxes linking temperature to atmospheric CO2 concentration time series. Computers & Geosciences, 196, 105838. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2024.105838
Ostorero, L., Esposito, R., Bouilhol, P., Ballato, P., Muller, V., Frezzotti, M.L., Sternai, P., “Iranian Neo-Tethyan magmas as a significant CO2 source during the Middle Eocene Climate Optimum”. Lithos, Under Review, preprint: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5118124
Fioraso, M., Sternai, P., Olivetti, V., Balestrieri, M. L., Zattin, M., & Cornamusini, G. (2024). Miocene climate cooling and aridification of Antarctica may have enhanced syn-extensional magmatism in the western Ross Sea. Global and Planetary Change, 240, 104538. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2024.104538
Sternai, P., Meroni, A., Vaes, B., Pasquero, C., Brune, S., Faccenna, C., Dynamic Topography and The Mantle Forcing on Climate: A Missing Link in Earth System Science. In preparation