Ancient evidence recovered from the bottom of a South Island lake has suggested large earthquakes can influence the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere.
A new study by Kiwi and UK scientists found that big quakes unleashed along the high-risk Alpine Fault had both mobilised and buried large amounts of carbon - a natural process that might remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
The researchers examined sediments that had accumulated over the past thousand years at the bottom of Lake Paringa in the Southern Alps.
An analysis of the sediments, recording the level of carbon isotopes before and after past quakes, indicated that shakes on the fault had produced nearly half of the carbon in the biosphere released from the alps.
Simulations of quake-triggered landslides suggested that some 14 million tonnes of carbon were released during each Alpine Fault earthquake.